Broken Mirror - Shatter
by Mess
Summary: What happens when the assasination of Edea goes horribly, horribly right... (Finished. Continued in Broken Mirror - Shards)
1. a moment of weakness

  
**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**I - moment of weakness**   


What I have is, I have a second in time. I have a split second in an abandoned building with a gun in my hand and every instinct is telling me who I am at that moment. That's what I've got left and that's all I've got left.

-- Homicide: Life on the Streets

***

Quistis Trepe had plenty of experience as a teacher. What did youth matter, after all? She often told people – usually older and highly respected professors – that it was her destiny to help shape the future. That tattered old cliché read so well, an orphan's call to nurture ever so noble in the face of their vaunted principles. What she did not tell them was that it was no grand life's work that really motivated her. It simply wouldn't do to admit to those staunch old souls or even to herself that she didn't care for their fabled emotional fulfillment through education.

The truth was that Quistis Trepe just needed to be needed.

This was a rather fortunate thing, considering the company that she was currently keeping. Trudging through the Delling sewers with Selphie Tilmitt and Zell Dincht might not have been tolerable otherwise. In a way it was somewhat like shepherding cats.

Cats, or maybe kindergartners.

"Ugh. Look at that, Selph!"

"Zelllll! That was, like, totally uncool! I so did not need to see that…or that next to it..."

"Was that a hot-dog? I think I'm going to be sick... lemme stop for a sec."

"Quistiiiiis... when are we going to get there?"

"Now," Quistis answered, using the always classic Teacher Voice with professional ease.

The sewers around her were oddly pristine considering their nature. Azure stone and ornate gates brought to mind something almost classically elegant. That was, however, before said mind brushed upon the location's inevitably foul stench and the constant chatter of Selphie and Zell. It would be best to ignore the pair; Quistis found that many students did these sorts of things only to gain attention. Best also to do the same with the sickeningly pervasive smell - but that was more because the blonde really didn't want to think about what was producing it.

Shaking her head slightly, the former instructor motioned towards a burnished metal ladder.

"We need to go up there. I suppose that I'll go first," she calmly stated, trying to keep any concern about the mission or or a certain Mr.Leonhart from infecting her voice. For her charges' sake, of course. She had to be the voice of reason to get them through this. As always. In a way this was just some weird version of the now monotonous Fire Cave test she had been more than happy to guide dozens of students through.

This was stupid. Quistis knew that there was no logical reason to not think of them as her friends. They were only a year younger than her. In the past week, however, 'they are your friends' seemed to have become her personal mantra.

"Time to get you of here? Yeeeeees!" can a high-pitched reply from the rear. Not pausing to address the pair further, Quistis began her ascent in a barely restrained hurry. They were at least responsible enough not to let themselves be left behind in this cesspool.

The instructor forgot to chide herself for not thinking of them as her friends. She'd make an extra effort after the mission.

**

A posse is supposed to stick together. They were still a posse... weren't they?

"GONE," the pale woman stated in what one who knew her well might have deciphered to be a lament. But then, who really knew Fujin Asher all that well? Seifer had always been the most aloof of their private little clique, and Raijin was... well, Raijin was just Raijin. Meaning that he wouldn't notice her depression if it bit him in the ass.

The partner in question was more obvious in his emotions - lolling in Headmaster Martine's plush leather armchair and generally acting as morose as he was ever likely to. He hadn't, after all, said a word in nearly three minutes. That might be some kind of record.

Yay.

The pair technically wasn't supposed to be in Martine's office, but none of the Galbadian students had felt up to the task of challenging the Balamb Disciplinary Committee. Edea's patronage and the support of Galbadia Garden's more lax group of enforcers were enough of a threat to gain the odd duo access to pretty much any area that they wanted. Well, those and a few rather lurid rumors involving the mysterious disappearance of some kid who used to run around in Balamb Garden. Brat made the mistake of bumping into Raijin - and little boys shouldn't run in the hallways.

Words, Fujin was forced to admit, were useful that way - even if they did also prompt Raijin into one of his never-ending commentaries. Oh well. She was used to it.

"C'mon Fujin… I know that it's weird not to be in Balamb and all, but hey, it could be pretty cool here y'know. At least we found Seifer n' he's alive and all…"

Whether he had purposely misunderstood her earlier comment or was simply as dense as reputation indicated was unclear. The albino enforcer supposed that it was a little bit of both. Yet whatever his motivations, at least the fighter cared about how she felt. They both knew that this sure as hell had nothing to do with Balamb. Raijin was happy wherever Seifer was, and - handsome soldier notwithstanding - Fujin was in a secondary sort of love with her new home. The spartan grandeur of Galbadia Garden was so refreshing after Balamb's gaudy and useless furnishings. If Headmaster Cid thought that he was fooling anyone with babbling fountains and gold filigree he was very, very sadly mistaken. Balamb Garden was as much war's breeding ground as this place, except her current residence did without Balamb's strange pretense of tranquility and goodwill.

Maybe Headmaster Cid just needed to fool himself.

And a few government inspectors.

Bah.

As randomly as ever, Fujin continued with another non sequiteur, "SEIFER."

"Hey, hey!" Raijin smiled, once more dragging himself into the belief that life would end up sunny no matter how the cards were played. The man might be a little on the thick side, but her friend was always good for that at least. "Seifer told us to stay here n' , y'know, infiltrate n' stuff. It's not like he left us again or anything… We're a posse, y'know! S'just his dream, is all. Aren't ya happy for him? And now we don't have to take anything from, y'know, Squall and them… 'Sides, we're almost done actin' like diplomatic type-people ta Martine anyway..."

"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin answered, almost letting a sigh creep into the void during an uncharacteristic lapse of control. Plush carpeting cushioned the restless meaderings of steel-toed work boots. Raijin… Raijin just couldn't see that strange look in his eyes, the one that only Fujin would notice. Raijin couldn't see that that woman was slowly pulling him away from them. The albino knew that if he did then the darkened man would be much more of a wreck than she was at the moment... or at least appear to be.

"Fujin? Yo, Fuuj!" pressed the dark-skinned fighter, "Edea's on the telescreen. Ya know what that means…"

"AFFIRMATIVE," the albino repeated, now still and much more focused. She would be patient, follow orders and the like in some insane parody of normality. For a posse stuck together, and whatever had lodged itself in her soul for the the missing member of their group would not be so easily denied. Certainly it would take more than the badly kept secret of his midnight visits to Edea's bedchamber or lengthening daytime absences to exorcise.

Goddamn witch. She was the biggest pretender of all, with her false love and fairytale mutterings. Her Seifer was too smart to be clouded by those pretty words, wasn't he? Raijin had been swayed quite easily but... that was different. That was Raijin. Raijin was prone to that sort of thing. But Seifer would recognize Edea's obvious manipulation eventually if Fujin had to...

No, dammit! She was absolutely not thinking like some jealous scheming floozy from one of her romance novels. The soldier knew better than to let herself think that she could rip him out of his romantic dream by attacking Edea... tempting as it was.

And so she would do his bidding this night. Modus operandi. Because if there was one thing that she did know, it was that unrequited love royally sucked.

**

Seifer Almasy had waited for what seemed like an eternity for this day. The day when they would cheer for him - the day when he would take his place at the side of his Sorceress just like in the legends.

The day when he would become the Knight.

"This is your new reality!" his mistress melodically called, cloaked in otherworldly flame and neon light. But it wasn't a new reality for him; not by a longshot. This more honorable existence had been mapped out in perfect detail within the corners of his mind all his life, just waiting to be unlocked by her presence. It was his destiny, after all. The warrior had known since he was a little child that he was the only one noble enough to be worthy of someone like her, the caretaker of a more honorable world. Seifer was the White Knight, protector of his Sorceress and master of the fates of thousands.

She was so beautiful as she stood there - that vision of mystic perfection that was any true Sorceress. They would be together forever, wouldn't they? She'd said as much, given him as much on what was perhaps the most perfect night of his life. No, make that second most perfect. Nothing could possibly match this fated debut, and for the first time in his existence Seifer Almasy convinced himself that he felt.... whole.

The Sorceress was on her throne, the Knight stood at attention, and all was right with the world.

It had to be.

**

"This is your New Reality!" crackled an authoritarian voice over the newly restored Galbadian telescreen network. The last thing most of it's viewers had expected to witness tonight was the immolation of their President.

And a New Reality it was - different if not better. But there was no time to ponder that or wallow in self-pity. More sensible things had to be done upon hearing the signal Seifer had outlined.

As Headmaster Martine hurriedly entered his office, Fujin quickly and quietly dispatched him. He was a trained fighter, to be sure, but well past his prime years and not nearly skilled enough to stand against the wind's frightening speed. As his broken body fell to expensive hand-woven rugs she didn't even spare a second glance. Hmph. Frivolous carpeting muffled an unpleasant squelch, if not contributing anything else useful to the room. She supposed that it was was dubious, however, that Martine had considered his own death by shruiken when he'd been interior decorating .

No matter. This was the sort of thing that she was supposed to feel bad about later, but then Fujin had always despised pretense - even that of tactful sorrow or regret. Trying to deny the fact that she would remorselessly obey Seifer to the point of cold-blooded assassination would be like cutting out her remaining eye.

Bah. Co-dependance was unbecoming in a soldier. And she never felt remorse, anyways.

As such, the telescreen was filled only with an eyepatch and sub-zero glare once Galbadia Garden's internal closed-circuit television system was activated by Raijin. The plan Fujin had conceived with Seifer scant hours ago was mechanically perfect, as per usual. While the few truly loyal Galbadian SeeDs spread among the Garden's general population like a virus, her voice filled the sprawling confines of the mercenary base much more substantially. The students - or, as Seifer would once have said, pansies - didn't know what hit them.

"NEW REALITY."

"MARTINE," she lifted a heavy, stiffened object to the cameras. The kill had been clean; nary a speck of clotted hemoglobin was present to contradict the former Headmaster's identity. It was always clean. There had been classes for the talented.

"DEAD."

"EXPLAIN."

The woman's strange voice carried the kind of threat that the man who proceeded to drone on behind her would never even think to express.

"Alright, people. This Garden is now under the control of those loyal to Her Majesty's Knight Seifer Almasy, y'know. I'm Captain Raijin Kasim of the Galbadian Imperial Army, and this is your new Commander Fujin Asher. Like she said, this is our new reality. Ya have no choice in this , y'know. Now we're going to try and make this change as smooth as possible, but those who don't play by the rules here will be, y'know…" Raijin's face was so innocent.. he really did make a great liar, though it was debatable if he really considered anything that Seifer told him to do really wrong.

"PUNISHED," the stark, arctic interjection of the new Commander rang through equally sparse halls. The gunshot of a command silenced any protest that the more bold students could have mustered.

"Now I wanna be your friend here, so, y'know, listen up. Now we all know that Martine wasn't the most popular guy around here what with the way you guys got shafted – y'know, only Balamb students and those who transfer there get t'be in SeeD n' all. But that wasn't why this had ta happen. Y'see, Sir Seifer stands for justice for ya, n' so do we. We tried to convince Martine to see justice, y'know. We really did. But he wanted to keep you all down, y'see…"

When Raijin Kasim spoke it was ordinary, and easily decipherable once one grew used to his characteristic accent.

"REBEL. POWER, OURS " Fujin once more interrupted. Yes, really theirs for once. The soldier's expression almost imperceptibly softened then, reaching out to all those rejected by the fickle favor of the powers that be. They were orphans trapped in the dead-end that was the Galbadian mercenary force - too unstable or unskilled or brilliant to be of any use in Balamb, and lacking any other real home. Abandoned for scrap. And for a split second, surprisingly, those watching could see an inkling of themselves through the static. They couldn't have known that it was because their new commander had quite the close personal relationship with rejection herself.

Fujin Asher didn't need pretty words.

**

There is a certain state of mind that is indicative of the truly skilled sniper. It has been defined by those experienced as a pronounced singularity of thought; the ability to focus one's every synapse on a tiny speck of flesh. The young man who was currently nestled inside the shadowed cranny of a rather gaudy clocktower was all too familiar with that technique. He had, after all, been trained in this particularly deadly art since the tender age of ten. Usually it was simple for him; find a satisfactory space and wait. Crouch low despite the biting insects or the pain of cramped muscles while descending into a world where all life is a target. A predominantly simulated target, to be sure, but a target nonetheless. In this the professors of Galbadia Garden could truly congratulate themselves: their pupil never tired, never missed, and absolutely never failed.

Unfortunately, this was not a simulation. And Irvine Kinneas was … distracted.

His teachers had warned him about this sort of thing. Don't wear that silly hat; the sweat upon your brow will blind you. There is no sound, sight, or smell - only white noise, a bullet, and that pivotal scrap of tissue. And above all, Irvine, don't think about the consequences of your actions. In fact, don't think at all! Numb your mind so that the job is all that matters. Be our perfect assassin, and we'll take care of you.

They needn't have worried for the most part. The oppressive humidity that was typical of Galbadia, the ominous chanting of clockwork dancers, and the harsh blue neon light were cleansed from his consciousness with practiced ease.

The would-be cowboy was, however, having a bit of trouble with his instructors' one final edict.

_Don't think about it.. just don't…_

Usually he could simply drown it out with the typical fantasies.

_A shapely woman, barely clad in the tiniest of bikinis, rubbing his back on the inviting white sands of…_

_~The beach. Matron and stark granite home behind them. Laughing, playing in the sun… running through the surf_   
_and then…_

_"Ooooowwww! Matroooooon!"_

_"There, there, Irvine. You're going to be fine"_

_…the most kindly smile in the world. ~_

Startled from this reverie by sudden motion, Irvine looked up to see brightly clad phantasms dancing above his head. It was beginning; the growl of long-motionless iron sounding a call to arms. Yet despite his duty the sniper remained motionless.

Don't think… just don't think about it… focus…

_~ "Happy Birthday, Irvine!"_

_ "I..... I wish my Mom and Dad were here…Why don't they want me, Matron?"_

_ Warmth; an embrace._

_ "Shhhhhh… your parents went away, but they loved you very, very much. Anyone would want you."_

_ Tears, scalding his cheekbones. He was acting like such a baby…_

_ "Really?"_

_ And, once more, that peerless smile._

_ "Of course." ~_

"Irvine Kinneas!"

This time it was the verbal which intruded upon Irvine's memories. The harsh command of his supposed commander could break through even the sniper's practiced trance. It was demanding, that call – an insistent urging towards bloodshed.

"I… I can't," Irvine muttered, not even bothering to turn and glance at a target he did not wish to see, " …I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I always choke like this." A lie, the assassin knew, but probably more palatable to his stone-faced companion than the truth, "… I try to act all cool, joke around, but I just can't handle the pressure…"

One single shot.

No. Women in those high-cut Seed skirts. Quistis getting out of the shower. Selphie in a bubble-bath. Laughter. Damn, he looked fine today… Anything but…

_Blot out the smile. Buh-bye, Matron._

_No. Focus. Don't think about it…_

"Forget it. Just shoot, " Squall replied. In the streets below, the warm glow of fire clashed with emotionless neon reflected on the pavement.

He was right, Irvine knew. This was too important for him crack now, no matter how much the supposed monster below resembled his surrogate mother. Funny, that the woman who had bandaged his skinned knees had turned out a Sorceress and neophyte dictator. Life was strange that way.

"My bullet…. the Sorceress… I'll go down in history. I'll change the history of Galbadia… of the world!" Irvine mused. Yet the shadow of a haunting smile still superimposed itself over dreams of grandeur and import.

"It's all too much."

"Enough! Just shoot!" hissed Squall, glow of unfeeling turquoise light reflected as if by magic. You'd think that a man like that would absorb such a thing.

"I can't, dammit!" Irvine snapped. The cold-hearted bastard didn't even seem to care. But he had been there just like the rest of them; how could he forget Matron!?! How could any of them forget?

He should be used to being alone by now: it was the sniper's classic position.

Squall would have made a far better sharpshooter than Irvine.

_Matron….I can't… I can't…_

_I have to focus._

"Irvine, calm down, " Squall said in a more pacifying manner; truly a great achievement considering the source. " Everyone's waiting on you. I don't care if you miss. Whatever happens, leave the rest to us."

"Just think of it as a signal, " Squall continued, " A sign for us to make our move."

"Just a signal," Irvine repeated.

_....they don't have to think about it.. not like me…_

_...never like me..._

_....just a signal…_

"Please."

I_t's not me… I won't… I can't…_

_Just a signal.. They don't have to think about it…_

_leave it all to them... and I don't have to think about it..._

_...don't think about it..._

"Just a sign," whispered the sniper.

_FOCUS_

Turning, the gunman took aim without a second thought - firing in a release of sheer conditioned instinct.

***

It is truly amazing how one fragment of time can change the very fabric of reality. Sometimes dream becomes reality. And sometimes fantasy fades to black. Maybe there really was a place where Sorceress and Knight really could have stayed together forever, or at least for the time it took Seifer to go mad within the illusion. Or perhaps he could have stayed with her only to pull himself out of the dream a changed man. Raw iron forged to steel in the realization of his own reality.

Alas, this was the New Reality, and that was not to be. Death cloaked in steel cut through gladly yielding air and, with the sickening crack of bone, tore through Sorceress' Edea's scantily-clad chest.

Her usually infallible instincts had fallen just a tiny bit off the mark that time. Edea - or, more accurately, her puppeteer - had thought to raise a Shell before Protect.

"Mistress!" her Knight shouted, panic and rage clouding an otherwise keen intellect. This wasn't supposed to happening, everything was supposed to be perfect…..

Forever. She was supposed to stay with him forever.

"S-Seifer…."

Eyes blazing with a fury dampened by despair, he knelt down beside his Lady. The blood was seeping ever so slowly from a gaping wound just above her heart. The elaborately feathered throne in which she had rested was now so insignificant. Pomp didn't stand a chance against raw brutality.

"Mistress, you'll live! I'll protect you!" he cried, distraught and desperately trying to take solace in his own words. A Knight was supposed to be able to protect his Sorceress at any cost. Surely he hadn't failed? Not after it had taken him so long to find her, after all of the dreams…

It couldn't be. The Knight never failed.

"N-no…boy…," she croaked.

Clutching her to his body, the Knight's snow-white coat was soon drenched in scarlet - the metallic tang of blood polluting crisp night air. She couldn't die, she just couldn't, for she was everything. And maybe in the warmth of his body the Knight could somehow reclaim the shattered carcass of a lover far beyond the help of magic. He had to; Knights were supposed to be able to make miracles happen. Even if their Sorceress' looked frail and sickly inside once glamorous trappings. Even if they   
could not make out what remnant of power and beauty had to be within one bony form. And even if clawlike hands running   
across their cheeks were for once faintly grotesque instead of exotic.

"Y-you're not my Ci…," rasped the Sorceress, some subtle air of cruelty suddenly missing from her crippled bearing.

"Mistress?," Seifer cradled his Sorceress' head, not understanding her meaning. A Knight was not supposed to have to   
prepare to comfort the dying.

"And another….I must find…another…"

"Don't say that, Mistress. You'll live. You have to.…," bleary-eyed and desperate, the warrior might have been about to start   
sobbing. Or perhaps it was simply a trick of the light.

This couldn't be. The Knight never failed, and neither did Seifer Almasy.

Not ever.

"Ahhh… there…." Edea whispered, once straining body relaxed and almost limp in Seifer's arms. If she heard him now she   
certainly did not show it.

"Goodbye…."

The true Sorceress Edea died with a gentle – if long unused - smile. The living dream died with her. Seifer Almasy, however,   
would survive....

One way or another.

**

In an obvious contrast to the atmosphere of dire resolution below, the mood inside Delling Gate was of a much more   
celebratory nature.

"Whoooooo-hoooo! Booooooooyaka!!!!!! We did it!!!" Selphie squealed, hopping about like some sort of deranged rabbit.   
Honestly, Quistis would never understand how her students - err... friends, that is - could take everything so lightly. The   
instructor was herself, of course, plagued by gnawing worry for a certain handsome student.

"Whoa. There's some kind of riot outside, " Zell babbled, obviously rather pumped up himself and peering through the room's   
tiny window. "The army's trying to put 'em down… wonder what's up with them? They should be cheering or something,"   
the puzzled youth continued.

Forehead in hand, Quistis slowly exhaled. The pained screeching outside their little eye in the storm had made it obvious   
enough to her.

"They were probably enchanted, Zell. It must be confusing for them to be broken out of it." Meeting his eyes, the former   
teacher continued, "Meaning that we have to get out of here before either the military or that mob decides that this gate would   
be a good place to shore up."

"You're the boss!" their tiny comrade chirped, "Let's go!"

Zell was meanwhile making punching motions at the air, oblivious to the drama playing out below.

"Damn! I wanted some action! Oh well…" he wilted.

Good. The teacher in her had restored order, and they really did need to make their escape.

"Squall will make for the Caraway Manor. It's fenced in, and the General will probably have at least a few loyal soldiers   
there," Quistis detailed, drawing out her whip. "That means that..."

"Back to the sewers? Eeeeeeewwwww! Majorly gross!"

"We don't have a choice, Selphie. Now...."

~FITHOS~

Before she could further advance her point, Quistis' train of thought was interrupted as the tendrils of a whisper crept into her   
mind. This didn't make any sense. The dancers were out of commission by now and…

"What the…"

~LUSEC~

The cacophony grew louder, a dozen voices in dissonant resonance. Definitely not the dancers.

"Instructor Trepe? You okay?" Zell asked, slipping into a more customary form of address as he scrambled across the rough   
sandstone floor. Strangely lightheaded, his rose-clad instructor fell to her knees.

No.

can't black out.. Not here.. Not now....

They had to get out of here. Squall… Squall might need her! He'd never needed her before…

~WECOS~

...I have to... I have to be there...

Foreboding words seared themselves into her skull, drowning out any remnants of rational thought. They also camouflaged any   
concerned panic that might have infused the blurs which were Zell and Selphie standing over her.

~VINOSEC~

…have to... have to… think…

…think…

~FITHOS~

…where…?

~LUSEC~

…who…?

…somebody… needed…

~WECOS~

...who.. what... am....I.....

....I...?

~VINOSEC~

Somewhere between pain and exhilaration an ancient melody entered into the woman's stream of consciousness, knitting   
together a soul rent by raw power. Pulsing, crackling, and relentless as it reached a crescendo, the primal beat could become   
the only focus for fragmented synapses….

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~

.....fithos....lusec..........wecos......vinosec?

Until finally the sonic assault could scream it's victory.

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC!~

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC!~

And with an unseen surge of energy, fade to black.


	2. the wounded

  
**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**i - the wounded**   


Oh I don't know why they,   
have taken all my favorite things away.   
But one thing that's for sure,   
I don't know what they were. 

-- Rose K., Rasputina 

_***_

There are certain things about a mission that one must simply expect to be caught off guard by. Reserve troops, secret passages, hidden caches of aura, smarmy and condescending employers…. whatever. Life as a mercenary was not renowned for it's predictability, after all. Technically, however, Fujin Asher was no longer a soldier of fortune - and in point of fact never really had been. But then, it had always what she'd been expecting to do after a few years as hall monitor in a school where the students regularly brutally maimed one another. All in the name of education, of course. Although education for what.. who knew? It wasn't as if the world needed that many mercenaries. 

She liked to think that she might have been at the top of that heap. In that belief the albino was not unfounded. 

Oh well. The point was that she was a Commander now, and Commanders had to expect entirely different obstacles. Her ignorance in this particular case was, however, understandable, as she had only been Commander of Galbadia Garden for the better part of two hours. 

Of all the goddamn things that could have gone wrong with Seifer's plan, the albino would have never thought that it would be boredom. 

For some bloody reason or other things had actually gone quite smoothly. The students were docile – if untrusting - while under lockdown. Smart kids. That was to be expected, though. The first thing that an orphan learns is what to do when they pawn you off; lie low and hope to whatever hell you believe in that your new guardian doesn't crawl into be with you that night. It hadn't happened to her, but there were stories… bound to be, with so many homeless kids around after the Estharan War. Too many. Enough to be expendable. Enough to scare every kid in a twenty-mile radius when you saw the look in their eyes. 

And so the students were staying down, giving in to an armed guard and the more visible weight of their new commander's threats. They were all orphans, and they knew the score. Oh, the Headmasters claimed that these were schools like any other, but Fujin knew better. What the hell kind of parents would pack their kid off to become some teenage killer? The albino had to give a hand to Headmaster Cid for that… upon first glance one wouldn't expect the man to have the audacity to take advantage of such an unethically cheap source of military strength. 

Then again, on first glance one wouldn't think that Headmaster Cid would have the balls to choose Balamb's paint color. 

In any case, Fujin found herself currently staring at her refection in the overly-polished walls of the Garden's largest auditorium. And thinking foolish, overly-analytical thoughts at that. Though much more lively when filled with loyalists ready to carry out her orders, the room's color had faded to the cold impartiality of gunmetal. Normally she would have liked that sort of thing; been relieved at the break from the white noise of Raijin's prattle. Yet at the moment the woman really did want him around , if only to fill up the air-conditioned vortex which swallowed the sound of her boots hitting metal grating. The wind was pacing again, for her body needed something to do even if her mind was forced to remain idle. 

As so it did, completely empty - the utter absence of thought prompting seemingly unfounded restlessness. Not Seifer Almasy, whom she was not thinking about. It wasn't as if she was worried about him being late to return, after all. She certainly didn't want to give in to some nonexistent weakness, make a mad dash to Martine's office, and get an outside telescreen feed, and obsessively check for his presence among the inevitably joyful revelers at the Sorceress' coronation. Just like a gnawing worry was not getting a strange-hold on her heart. Seifer was a great fighter, he could take care of himself…. Even if she didn't know what the hell he thought he was doing being an hour late. She wasn't worried. Nope. 

Not at all. 

Of course, one more hour and Fujin would drag his scrawny – and definitely not cute – ass out of there if she had to fly the bloody garden to Delling to do it. There was not telling what that witch would do to her friend. 

Goddamit... where the hell was Raijin!?! Galbadia's indestructible steel chairs didn't make for great targets.. 

*** 

"Ya should have been transferred to Balamb, ya know." 

"What?" 

"I said that ya should have been transferred to Balamb. For tha SeeD test. 'Cause, like, ya look like ya could have made it, ya know?" the bronze giant smiled. 

"Yeah. Yeah I could so, ummm.. " 

"It's Captain Raijin." 

"Oh. I'm Jonny," a small child stared up at him, flanked by others of a less courageous temperament who were seated in the row behind him. Seifer'd told him to look after the little kids - and he was right. Raijin might not be a very smart man, but he knew enough to get the little guys to leave Fujin well enough alone. Fuuj didn't like kids, and kids... didn't like Fuuj. 

Not that he could tell her that to her face and live to breath another day, of course. 

"Mr.Raijin... what's going to happen to us?" 

"Well," he knelt down, recalling when he'd been just as little, "I have this friend..." 

"The scary lady?" 

"Awww.. she's not so scary. She just acts tough, " he winked conspiratorially. " But I have another friend who's a Knight, ya know." 

"A real live knight!?" 

"Yep. An' me an' him an' Commander Fujin are a posse, see..." 

"What's a posse, Mr.Raijin? 

"It's kinda like bein' best friends... when you're in a posse, ya do what's best for the posse. Like, telling each other the truth, and bein' loyal an' stuff..." somewhat reassured, the writhing mass of children inched forward. All in all there were about four hundred primary school kids in Galbadia Garden, and all seemed fixedated on his every word as he took the podium in Sub-Auditorium C. Seifer had said that it would be the best way to avoid panic. He'd also called them mewling brats. Seifer was funny like that sometimes. 

"Would you guys like to be in a posse too?" 

The majority of the youngsters raised their arms. Cautiously, granted... 

"They do things that are, like, noble an' loyal an' knightly an' stuff, " Raijin parroted his missing buddy. "Now, the guys that were here before.. they didn't have a posse." 

"Where did Headmaster go, Mr. Captain Raijin, sir?" 

"He want away, ya know? 'Cause he wasn't like a knight, or in a posse or anythin'" 

"Mr.. Raijin, can I be a knight when I grow up!?!" 

"Mr.Raijin, does this mean that I don't have to take math anymore?" 

"Mr.Raijin, can lights out..." 

The crowd had formed into a large chorus of 'Mr.Raijin's, it took some wild gesturing on the part of an errant Edean loyalist to capture the captain's attention. Well, that and the fact that Raijin was currently daydreaming about catching some Delling pike... 

"Captain! They're getting restless down in the dorms What.." 

Face falling after the slim euphoria of actually doing something right for a change, Raijin pondered his options. Fujin was not supposed to know he was here. If he showed up to see Fujin late, then she would kick him. Raijin didn't like to get kicked. Sooo... 

"Ummm... go tell Commander Fujin, ya know? And, like, tell her I'm busy..." he chirped, smiling, while attempting to ward off the advancing high-pitched tsunami. 

"Yessir" 

Wow. He didn't actually have to tell Fujin. Maybe Seifer'd been right about this knight thing after all. He was kinda bright that way, ya know. 

*** 

At that moment two other figures were struggling through a much less sanitary environment. Well, three if you counted the comatose body suspended between them. Zell wasn't exactly sure what had happened to Instructor Trepe, but he did know one thing. They had to get to Caraway Manor. Why? Because Zell needed Squall to tell him what the hell he was supposed to be doing about this. Good old Squall... he always came up with a plan somehow. 

The fighter would, however, have settled for a familiar landmark right about now. Man, this whole thing was really not good. 

"Zellllll.... are we lost?" Selphie's trademark whine emerged from behind him. 

"No!" the martial artist yelped. As if he was going to tell _Selphie_ that Quistis was the only one with a clue how to get back. 

His shoulders were aching by now; the girl behind him really wasn't suited to carrying heavy loads what with her being so short and all. And the pain wasn't the good kind of aching, either. Like, when he was using the punching bag that Ma gave him for his birthday, _that_ was good pain. Muscle-building and easily forgotten after a hotdog or three. This pain though... his ligaments just hurt like hell. 

Grandpa would have told him to work out more. 

It seemed as though they had progressed back to the same waterwheel again. Well, if you could call that water. Putrid sludge was more like it. Pretty nasty, really. The smell had been okay before, but now that Instructor Trepe was injured it was so nasty that it wasn't even funny. Panic tends to clear the mind, at times. Saving Quistis' life and getting out of this mission alive was quite literally on Zell's shoulders, and that just wasn't cool. Not at all. In fact, it hella sucked. 

He had just wanted some action, for crying out loud! He knew that he wasn't the leader type - leave that to his buddy Squall - and this just wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. SeeD missions were supposed to be, like, exciting and adventurous and stuff. And he was supposed to get to practice all of the wicked-cool moves that he'd been learning. Nothing in the academy's lectures had mentioned anything about tromping around in a bloody sewer with his comatose teacher. What if she died? Poor Quistis... 

Dammit, this really sucked. 

"Zelllllll... aren't those the stairs?" 

*** 

There are several madmen on the streets of Delling City. Some are impossibly right, some are terribly impoverished, and some are just devoted and rather vocal in their own incoherent way. All manage to remain invisible, however, if only by the grace of the apathy of the masses. The good people of Delling did not want to see the human refuse that littered their streets and could not help but turn a blind eye when their view of madness was filtered through gil-colored glasses. 

Seifer Almasy was an exception - but then, Seifer had a knack for being exceptional at anything he put his mind to. Enraged madness; that really would fit the bill after his Sorceress' death. Rage is the anesthetic of choice when the world falls apart; the former Knight's subconscious had learned that much from Fujin years ago. 

Former Knight? No. There was too much to be done, vengeance to take, order to create, and a new reality there for the shaping. In her name, of course. More accurately, perhaps, in her memory. 

What kind of a world was it where the fairytale couple didn't live Happily Ever After? 

"ENOUGH!" 

Those who still considered their loyalty Edea's paused in what could only be considered a bloodbath. Scarlet on their nightsticks, scarlet on the concrete, scarlet tainting the shrieking of herd of lost lambs. Even the soldiers themselves were far too worked up for this even to be considered a riot, the stark Galbadian uniforms often playing victim to humanity's crush rather than vice-versa. Seifer could see it all, perched behind the protective bonds of a deathtrap. 

"You! Open that gate!" 

"Ummmm....." the guard paused. 

"NOW!" 

Seifer had a way about him, in that respect. Strange, really, in a man not to be considered a natural leader. But then there has always been a difference between the leader and the commander, has there not? 

And so the somewhat ancient gates once more rattled into their accustomed resting place. Not the most graceful of calls to arms... considering the circumstances it would have to do. 

Seifer Almasy was, after all, a man on a mission. 

"You! To the Palace... break through that crowd! Do I LOOK like I care about this float!? " 

"N-no sir" 

"The Sorceress is dead, and so is the President... " 

"Who the hell is that guy?" 

"Are you questioning me!? The _Knight_!?! You're going to do what I say or get crushed by these goddamn lunatics, do you understand!" 

"Y-essir..." 

" But isn't the ... 

"Shut up. Edea's dead, prettyboy." 

"What!? What do you mean I'm nothing without the Sorceress? Who said that there was no more Sorceress? What the hell kind of Knight do you take me for? This is all Edea's plan. Now MOVE OUT!" 

If anything, Seifer Almasy was a stubborn man. Stubborn enough not to let the dream die in this tawdry place. And if the whole world was as corrupt and broken as this relic of a Galbadia square.. then he would simply have to fix the world. 

It was a Knight's duty to protect his Sorceress. 

Seifer Almasy _did not_ fail. 

*** 

"Irvine... we have to get out of here." 

The words reached the young man's ears and, instead of being process as was their due, seemed to fade into thin air. 

"You were successful," his companion continued, "Look, we have to get out of here..." 

Yet still, he sat immobile. Waiting. Mayhaps for the red-clad soldiers wending their way through the mob to reach him, and put him to a well deserved justice. Or maybe, just maybe, for his mother to get back up and say that this was all a game just like when he was little. 

"I-it wasn't supposed to be this way," a muttering, scattered to the wind. Before he... before her... it had been a warm night, before. 

"What are talking about?" and another cool breeze paid homage to the north wind. Willfully declining either to understand or care, the young man's countenance was ice. 

That was good. He deserved that. He deserved... no he didn't. He couldn't have done that. He couldn't.... 

"It wasn't... it was just a signal...just... just a..." 

_And when the blood ran down her dress she was smiling._

_Smiling._

**_Smiling._**

_Why were they screaming?_

_It was, it was..._

"Pull yourself together. We have to leave before Seifer..." 

"Do you remember her smile, Squall?" his voice cracked, broken. A symptom of the greater disease. 

"Why are you..." even the impeccable Squall Leonhart had his limits. 

"You don't remember," the sniper rasped. "YOU don't have to remember, do you?" 

_And when she looked at him, her eyes fixed on his soul._

_And she was **smiling.**_

_So why was there blood, blood everywhere._

_And why ... what could have done such a..._

_No_

**_No_**

**_NO_**

"It was your job, not mine. Yours." 

"...Whatever. If you don't come with me I'll have to take you." Squall rose, looking down on the expendable man. 

"It's not my fault." 

_"Point and shoot, focusing on the heart. Have all of you loaded your clips successfully?"_

_Brass, shining in the neon light as Balamb's avenging excalibur_

_"Good. Did you know that you have perfect aim, boy? We shall have to develop this..."_

_Don't think about it..._

_Blood, blood everywhere_

_And she used to smile at him... like a mother._

_Just don't think about it._

_It's not your fault._

_It wasn't supposed to happen that way._

"Look, Irvine. I don't care if..." 

"You were supposed to kill her. YOU were." 

_"Matron, can I play outside?"_

_"Why don't you play with Squall, Irvy?"_

"...whatever. We can't have you fall into enemy hands." 

He didn't hear the screaming as a swarms of Galbadian Soldiers cut a swath through an ocean of humanity. It was her. She was screaming. And he wasn't supposed to have... 

_Don't think about it..._

_DON'T THINK ABOUT IT_

"I'll... be okay..." he chocked, slowly pulling himself up from a tear-stained huddle. 

"Squall... they're coming!" 

Practically dragging the shell-shocked assassin away from his perch, Squall nodded to his second charge. 

"Let's go." 

*** 

An hour and a half. 

He was supposed to have called her back, then. 

She really, really wanted to see Raijin. 

"Commander Fujin? Ma'am?" a generic soldier poked his head about the entryway. 

"SEIFER, CALLED?" that was as anxious as Fujin was about to let herself get. 

"Ummm.. no Ma'am," he shirked. 

"DISTURB, WHY!?!" his commander snapped in return. 

"We seem to have a problem... 

"RAGE!" Something lacking in Siefer-related content was definitely on the 'not wanting to hear' list. 

That was it. Am hour and a half.. who knew what had happened to Seifer in all that time? 

"GARDEN, FLY." 

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but there seems to be a bit of a situation on the dorms. Some of the students..." 

"GARDEN, FLY!" 

"... are rebelling Ma'am. I'm sorry Ma'am, but you might want to go down there. Some of them have set fire to.." 

She glared. He finished. 

There were now two options to be considered. The first was, of course, to get her ass down to Delling and make sure that the third member of her posse wasn't engaged in some kind of magical sacrifice. The second would be not to disappoint him when he got back... 

Inaudibly sighing, though maintaining ramrod posture, Fujin grabbed the front of the unfortunate private's uniform. 

"TAKE," a hoarse growl emerged to to swipe at her inferior. 

"TAKE NOW." 

The occupants of the Galbadia Garden dorms were going to pay for this. Dearly. 

*** 

"What the..." 

There was once thing that General Carroway had thought to see when he entered his office, fresh from a rather revealing message delivered by one of his soldiers. Specifically - his daughter. Probably demanding to be let out, or using that devastating _look_ on him which he'd never really been able to figure out. Even her mother, the great and worldly Julia Heartilly, couldn't put one past his baby girl Rinoa's tried-and-true puppydog eyes. 

Oh, and those friends of hers. Mustn't forget to keep them away from it all as well if he could - he had a feeling that this would end badly. 

As such, it would be an understatement to say that three teenage mercenaries covered in filth were a bit of a surprise. 

"What the..." 

"General Carroway, sir," a boy, blondish and underwhelmingly attired, addressed him while plopping a human-shaped load on the divan. A very expensive divan. Which was now covered in slime and dung and the Guardian Forces knew what else. 

It was fortunate that General Carroway was of the breed overwhelmingly dedicated to the military. 

"What's going on here? And where's my daughter," the pitbull bark of a man as used to giving orders as breathing made its entrance. This couldn't be happening again... 

"Answer me!" he had, of course, the requisite matching gaze of iron. Standard equipment, don't you know. 

Perhaps his disposition was not such a blessing after all. 

"We.... the Sorceress is dead, sir." 

"I know that! Now why isn't Rinoa with you!?!" 

He had no time for this.. why must the girl always run off at the most importune moments? 

"Please... Instructor Quistis here is in helluva bad shape. You've gotta help her.. " shirking, Zell got to the point. He wasn't such a dense guy when things were put properly. 

"We thought that Rinoa was with you." 

Mentally cursing life, his daughter's flighty temperament, and humanity in general - the officer sharply turned away. 

"Well go and..." 

An anonymous underling, clad in the ubiquitous Galbadian red, moved to interrupt. 

"Sir! The Sorceress' guards are moving to shore up in Delling palace! Lieutenant Xen asks for your orders, sir." 

"Dammit..." the older man growled, obviously struggling to hold back more... ungentlemanly comments. "You! Call someone about the girl... and if Rinoa comes back send a messenger. I've got work to do." 

Once again, Rinoa Heartilly had abandoned her father. And once again, duty called far louder than any mewlings which might cross the chasm is his heart that was Juilia Heartilly. 

Some days, he didn't blame her for not loving him 


	3. triage

  
**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**III - triage**   


It was one of those rare cases where those in need of a clue are blessed with someone who's genuinely clueless. 

-- Homicide: Life on the Streets 

*** 

There was something too organic about Delling Palace - all curves and veils and sinewy arches. A beast of the ocean depths, perhaps, flowing blues and greys and translucence forming an ethereal sort of skeleton where perhaps a garden might have thrived. A rather beautiful corpse mummified. Too lovely for death, too static for life. 

A clever deception by a clever man, that. Well, at least he must have been clever at some point. Now he wasn't even a meal for the flies - vaporized for all to see on national television. A blemish on the life of a man who'd fought against the most advanced empire on the planet. Such a the bloody gash on his reputation was brought about by the simple reality that taking up with a Sorceress was not terribly conducive to your average mortal dictator. Still, President Delling's palace was something special among the baubles of the tyrants of the day - a brilliant facade. Far removed for the inferno depths of a subterranean political prison, and gated away from the writhing hordes of purgatory. 

Leeches are sea beasts. They feed and they drain and they heal and one never feels a thing. Willing victims praise them to the skies. 

But on this day of all days the balance was upset - and the impassive ocean blue of heaven's florescent lights was assaulted by flickering crimson traveled up from the middle regions. It wasn't often that purgatory mattered in it's passive sleep twixt heaven and hell, you understand. Yet today they were confused - their angel looked a demon and had fallen from the skies. An inexcusable break of the general order of their lives. Today there were to come up against the great beast that was not. 

The wall had broken, somehow. Whitewash and mortar were out of place in heaven - scar tissue for the beast. 

But if there was something organic about Delling Palace , then there was no hope of infection spreading through it's heavenly walls. Every great creature, you understand, has its parasites. 

And it didn't hurt that any dictator worth a damn armed his stronghold to the teeth. 

*** 

There was a spiral stairwell in the forum of the building - and it seemed the only escape from a suffocating crush of human bodies. Humidity of breath and scent of battle took on a life of it's own, an entity thriving on the tattered mass whose very presence contradicted their surroundings' gentility. 

It was odd, then, that only one man stood on that stairwell. A tattered sort of man - worn and greying white - who burned brighter than the sun. Or maybe not. But the man certainly acted the part of alpha male well. 

"Alright. I want company one to get their asses to the rooftop and man the rail guns - and for Hyne's sake flow that goddamn clock the fuck up. Second company is searching every goddamn corner of this place for our gunmen, and if you even _think _about killing them I will personally hand your ass to you. Third - you're at the breach. BARRICADE is the word, people - we're not getting out of this fucking sea of psychos alive with just some pansy sniping. The rest of you get your girly selves to the walltop. I want a sentry every five meters. Is that clear? " 

Silence reigned, but for the screams of rioters caught in magical insanity, breathing, and the rustling of clothes. Not too enthusiastic, but at least he'd pulled them all in here. Goddamn pansy morons couldn't even take direction... 

The crowd blinked. In unison. Quite the achievement, actually. 

"Look, does anyone else have the balls to get up here? I didn't think so. So get your pansy asses out there before that mob tears us apart!" 

And lo, order ensued. Almost mystically, really. Of course there were the usual rumblings of discontent, but one did not make it into Edea's guard without knowing the ways of the wolf pack. Subordinate creatures, the lot of them. Well, that and the tiny matter of not wanting to die. 

The smell of charred flesh wafted through the windows, carried upon wings of terror. Sparks of a greater inferno hadn't reached them though. Not yet. 

"Do we have any tech people here?" the leader's voice, that of one Seifer Almasy, didn't sound like it should have. Mental imbalance didn't carry well through the shouting. The mark of a born leader, that one little modulation of manner - most of the great have been at least a touch eccentric. 

Said voice halted a surprisingly large soldier in his tracks - brave soul. 

"Sir?" it took him a minute to fight through the crowd. 

"Congratulations, you're promoted. Now get on the line with Carroway and ask him where the _fuck_ his people are! I'm out of here." 

The man nodded, more than a little cowed by the one turning away from him to climb the steps. 

"Sir? Where..." the refrain continued, this time a bit more unsteady. 

"Rooftop, " Seifer clipped his words. 

"And I shall address you to General Carroway as..." the man was either extremely competent, or extremely stupid. Given the rather disconcerting gleam in Seifer's eyes at the moment, most likely a bit of both. 

"Sir Seifer. Stop wasting my time," the Knight drawled. 

"But.. sir, the sorceress is dead..." apparently stupidity had won out as motivating factor. 

"Did I _not_ just give you a direct order?" his commander breathed a question, narrowing cerulean eyes in impatience before continuing his ascent. Seifer didn't need to wait for the answer - there were important things to be done. Fucking pansy. No wonder these people needed a man like him to fix things for them. 

"... no sir. Sorry, sir..." 

The foyer had emptied itself of infection, leaving but that one fragment stranded on perfect steps. The veils on the walls, alas, ,has met their fate at the hand of overzealous soldiers. The acoustics of the empty chamber, however, served to carry one Knight's footsteps over the cacophony. 

*** 

If Delling Palace might easily have been mistaken for a Garden, then Galbadia Garden should have been a fortress rather than a glorified dormitory. A pity, really. Fujin certainly wished that it was. For them it might be full of professionals rather than a bunch of heavily-armed case-studies in the effect of post-traumatic stress syndrome on adolescents. Never mind that two out of three misanthropes would have dubbed the albino the same. 

She, at least, wasn't so deluded as to think that the death of Martine would be a great time to attempt to hold some kind of protest turned kegger. Obviously, the students of Galbadia Garden doubted her ability to kick their asses. 

Bah. Students. Not soldiers or mercenaries. That was the problem, and the solution. 

"RAGE!" 

Soldiers for example, would have have taken an aggressive yet defensive position upon the entrance of a hostile force smaller than their own into home territory. Organized some sort of blockade maybe, or if mercenary they could have performed a nasty little guerilla ambush. The trademark of inferior forces everywhere, of course. At the very least it would have involved some kind of convoluted escape plan through ventilation ducts and/or easily locked passages. 

When Fujin and her group of higher-level student loyalists made their entrance to the now thoroughly wrecked cafeteria, the general populace didn't bat an eye. Not to mention that it looked like a tornado had recently been interior decorating, rather than any sort of organized defense perimeter having been set up. 

And so, it appeared that the new commander had a problem. A very loud, somewhat drunken, and altogether disrespectful problem. Apparently, being... "nice" to them hadn't worked. Bah. The most annoying part was that she knew exactly how it felt - that burning desire to be in control of _something_. It must be an orphan thing. 

Unacceptable, that depth of feeling. That was best left to Seifer. 

"RAAAAAAAAAAGE!" 

Thereby came the sad, swift, and sudden downfall of three kegs of beer liberated from the kitchens. Poor things. They couldn't have seen the triplet thundaga's heading for them. And surely, if by some hint of extra-sensory perception they could, there was no predicting the sudden and assuredly fierce wind that had sprung up within the chamber. 

Now, apparently , she had their attention. 

"INSOLENCE!" 

But lo, her intimidation tactics had a rather unanticipated effect. Said effect being very little of one. The students seemed more confused than anything, and some of them appeared to be... laughing at her? Stifling giggles in the crowd? These ill-trained, sheltered, pansy students dared to laugh at _her_!?! And what moron had decided to have a party in the middle of a freaking war zone? And what the hell was this? 

Why, the frightening realization that she had no mouthpiece, of course. 

And so, before a crowd of several hundred red-clad teenagers, Fujin Asher was faced with a decision. It was the kind of decision that changes things - like the wings of a butterfly fluttering to create a storm ten thousand miles away. A decision that belonged more in some kind of television special about personal growth to be shown after school hours. Something so apparent in it's alteration of reality that it blows the concept of chaos theory right out of the water. 

There was only one person here to give discipline. 

Ascending the top of one iron table very fortunate not to be a filthy wreck, Fujin Asher did the most courageous thing she'd ever done in her life. Maybe it was a dram of adrenaline become absinth. Or perhaps the desperate, primitive hunger for survival. Power, mayhaps. Or even a blue-eyed ideal goading her on. 

But it wasn't. 

It was actually rather unconscious. 

When Fujin Asher stopped looking like a deer caught in the headlights, she began to speak. 

"That was your last mistake of the evening. You are unarmed, yet behaving in an inappropriate manner. I do not wish to open fire, but this is conduct unacceptable in soldiers. So are you soldiers? Or just a lot of whining brats? Either way, I _will _have discipline here." 

And no one was as surprised as she was. 

*** 

"Sir." 

An orderly, upon entering General Carroway's office, would be immediately struck with the implicit neatness of the place. Not sterile, mind you, but blessed with a starched sort of quality. Yet said messenger might not, unless confronted with a mirror, realize that he too looked just a little bit starched. Back strait, eyes forward, and a voice exemplifying the impartial military ideal -that was the rule of the day. Carroway, it seemed, was used to things like that. And people always like what they're used to. 

"I'm somewhat occupied here. Is it Rinoa?" the beaded man, obviously fatigued, propped his head up only by force of an iron will. The general had, after all, been working out troop movements for most of the night. 

"No, sir. We have a communiqué from Delling Palace. Seems that they've holed up under a... "Sir Seifer Almasy", sir? Apparently they're trying to subdue the civilians by force." 

"Almasy.. did you say Almasy?" the question in his voice was uncharacteristic. A mark upon the staunch facade that was the man himself, just as out of place as the guttering candles which brought an unreliable light to the chamber. It was too dangerous to put on electric lights - who knew what elements the chaos of the day had brought to a fore? 

"Yes, sir." 

Again somewhat jarringly - given his usual unflappable manner - the general appeared mildly frustrated. Not a good sign,in a man who'd acquired most of the wrinkles creasing his face at war with the Estharian Empire. 

"One of Edea's lapdogs, " the general offered by way of explanation. 

"They're requesting support." 

".... Withhold. And have our men withdraw to circle this compound. I want barricades on Sussex Street and Beecher Avenue." 

It was the general's job to be decisive, and decisive he was. The last thing they needed was for the Sorceress's lackey to make a grab for power at a time like this. Madman - if he wanted to start a civil war, Carroway would give it to him. 

Robert Carroway had given up too much for the army - nay , for the nation - for anything else to be acceptable. Rinoa, after all, was out of his grasp. 

*** 

"Squall... I need to rest." 

Irvine Kinneas heard the light soprano through a fog of silence. The sort of veil created not by the pained screamings of a panicked mass - though there was that too - but by the mind's ability to willfuly create a mirage. In any case, he really couldn't care less about the comment's implications. The sniper wasn't about to regard much of anything at the moment, pausing in a mad dash to safety prompted only by his more silent companion. 

The gunman was calmer now, though. He'd pulled himself together, in the too-hot night air. Had to, stars staring down at them. The whole word was looking, peering into very crack in his facade. Would they see it? Would they find his guilt, his stain? 

_... not my responsibility.._

_Not mine._

_No._

_Not ever._

_Focus._

The girl was breathing heavily - obviously unsuited to combat. She smiled at him. Or more accurately, at Squall Leonhart. No matter. 

_She smiled.. why won't she stop smiling at me?_

_Matron, please... it's not my fault..._

"I'll be alright, though! " the blue-clad girl chirped. Her hair was black as night. And she was smiling. Still smiling. There was gunfire in the air. There was blood in sable tresses. Just like... 

_No._

_Why would she do this?_

_...it wasn't his fault.. wasn't his..._

_Couldn't be._

_No._

_Squall._

_Squall had said that he would do it. Squall had **said**._

_This was Squall's fault. He'd show her..._

"You alright, Irvine?" Rinoa interrupted, apparently undaunted by her ordeal. 

"Stop that!" 

The sniper backed away, slowly raising a rifle whose voice was twinned most everywhere. 

"Stop what?" the girl's brow creased in confusion. Rinoa was one of the more naive souls to grace this particular rooftop. And her voice... 

She was really being very nice to him. 

"You... it's your... STOP IT!" Irvine managed a growl, continuing his weapon's ascent in some soft of defensive arc. Not practiced though, more of an instinctual blocking. 

Their fearless leader Squall was, as usual, oblivious. He'd likely been paying more attention to the possible motions of surrounding troops and the implications of a spreading blaze. Which was all very well and good, even though the play of firelight on Rinoa's obsidian locks might have played just the tiniest part in his distraction. The girl certainly would have liked that, but one never really knew with a man like Squall. 

"Both of you - we have to keep moving..." leather-clad apathy gestured to a ladder. There was no observable reaction when Irvine turned towards him , firearm raised. 

"This is your fault! Your responsibility!" a whisper in the night. 

"What?" the response came like blood from a stone. Apparently the impervious Mr.Leonhart could be made to react after all, even if it was to the sort of glimmer in blue eyes that he might never notice on an ordinary day. 

"You said it. You said so yourself. Just a signal.. just a sign..." 

Such inattentiveness was probably why he hadn't noticed something in the sniper before. Something... broken. An air of wrongness that might as well be labeled sound psychiatric diagnosis. 

_Just a signal.. just a sign..._

_I'll prove it to her. I will. Then she'll stop, I know it._

_Then she'll smile at him._

"You were the one that killed her. Why did you kill Matron? Why won't she stop smiling at me? It's not my fault," and suddenly , expressive lips were curled upwards in their own parody of a smile, framed by waved chestnut hair. Relief, perhaps? Perhaps - it was an expression almost childlike in nature. Irvine Kinneas was, at that moment, reduced to something like a peculiar stage of infancy - that where one is full of questions which cannot be answered. 

Squall, of course, noticed none of that. 

"Irvine?" 

"It's your fault. And I'm going to prove it to her. I'm going to make her stop..." it was the sort of smile used for seduction. One that men of certain tastes practice in the eternal hope that they too might become the fabled 'lady's man'. A grin with a tinge of lust, a dram of longing. Just the right amount of charm to draw the unsuspecting like moths to a flame, and a suitable measure of poison added for that special air of danger. 

It was with that smirk that Irvine Kinneas, the greatest sniper in all the gardens, opened fire. Perhaps he thought it was his right, or his duty, or his penance. Or maybe when one single bullet tore through the air, matched by the sound that signals flight or death, he wasn't thinking at all. 

Regardless, when it summoned forth the blood in Squall Leonhart's chest, impact pushed the mercenary over the edge of the building and into the night. His blood didn't even stand a chance to reach the concrete. And Irvine could keep smiling. 

Because it wasn't his fault. It wasn't. 

And the girl had stopped smiling. Just for now. 

_Matron... you see now don't you? You understand? They don't have to remember - and they promised._

_They **promised**._

_You always said that I should make sure that people fulfill their promises, Matron._

"Wh- what have you done, Irvine? Why... why would you.. he was..." a tear-stained, heart-shaped face attempted to intrude upon the sniper's vision. Alas, it could not. 

_And I did it just like the men in school said that I was supposed to._

_Aren't I a good boy, Matron?_

_Maybe I shall go to the beach. We liked the beach, didn't we? There was sun, and clouds...._

_ I liked the beach, out by the lighthouse. I liked to make sand castles. The waves were big. And you would play with me - you looked so pretty, Matron. And you'd smile at me._

_But not that smile. That smile's for him._

_Yes._

"I'm going to the beach," Irvine veritably sang, balancing on the ledge twixt adjacent structures. Rinoa had fallen to her knees, sobbing into air whose humidity just might have a chance at matching the moisture of her tears. 

_Because I didn't do it._

_I **didn't**._

_And I'm not going to think about it._

*** 

"What the fuck was that noise!?" the white knight came charging up the steps. _Her_ white knight, in point of fact, though not to be confused with the black knight who lay bleeding three stories below. 

" Don't fucking move, either of you. Decide to shoot up more women, you honorless femmy scumbag?" 

A second - or possibly a year - later, when Rinoa Heartilly though once more to breath, she found herself bawling. 

"Oh, I get it. You finally got some blood on your hands, eh Rinoa? You're both coming with me." 

The man she loved had been shot. The man who was supposed to protect her in case of his injury was the one who had done the shooting. And the man she had thrown away, and was maybe just a little bit still attracted too, was coming after her with a gunblade. It was, therefore, a pretty decent time to start crying. Better than shock, at any rate. Rinoa had never thrived out of the company of men. 

But at least the crazy man was running away - that was good, right? Seifer hadn't hit him with his bullets, like the crazy man had hit Squall. 

"What!? Get the hell back here, prettyboy!" 

Maybe this was all a dream. Yes, that must be it. Things like this didn't happen to her. Things like this _never_ happened to her. Everyone loved Rinoa, right? People made things okay for her - daddy's little princess. Most everyone called her a princess, even if she wasn't one. A delicate girl. 

So why was Seifer grabbing her arm and dragging her back into the palace instead of comforting her? 

And why wasn't Squall coming up that ladder, freshly curaga'd , to save her? 

Rinoa didn't understand. Just didn't understand it at all - the look of pain which had served to doubly scar her beloved's face. Because things like that weren't seen by her. That was what SeeDs and boyfriends and fathers were for. 

Alright, so maybe shock played a part in her silent weeping, as she limply allowed herself to be guided back into the building. 

*** 

"Sir, General Carroway has refused all requests to establish a coordinated effort. His aide also mentioned that the Sorceress is indeed dead, her successor being held by the General, and that he believes we should proceed at once to place ourselves under..." 

Sir Almasy sat, night enthroned, in the former chamber of Sorceress Edea herself. Considering the night's events, a fitting revolution. 

"Sorceress?" 

"Yes sir." 

"Ignoble moron. If the Sorceress had a successor, she isn't dead at all. Tell that bitch Carroway's people that I want their Sorceress, and that I expect the whole of the armed forces to be placed under my jurisdiction by sunrise, " Seifer Almasy grinned for the first time in hours like the proverbial Cheshire cat, " Tell them... that I have his daughter." 

She had been fun, Rinoa - thought it wasn't really a huge surprise to see that that pansy Leonhart had somehow dragged her into things. But the Sorceress was more important. The dream just wouldn't perish, you see. That it might was simply inconceivable. The Sorceress was alive - and he could make the world fit for her. They had cherished their New Reality so much... 

Seifer Almasy _never _failed. 

*** 

That night, Fujin Asher took command for the first time in her life. And she spoke to a crowd of hundreds, about abandonment and war and death and a thousand other things she knew inside out. She didn't once think about Seifer. 

That night, Seifer Almasy decided that something needed fixing. That a dream was not only worth his own death, but that of a thousand others. That a Knight - and only a Knight - could make things right. Whether the world liked it or not. 

That night, Quistis Trepe lay in a coma, awaiting the care of a Dr.Kadowaki. Raijin Kasim told two hundred scared young children a story. Zell Dincht helped to build barricades, Selphie Tilmitt took a nice hot shower, and Rinoa Heartilly cried herself into slumber in a locked stateroom. 

General Robert Carroway didn't sleep a wink. 

That night, Irvine Kinneas lost his way. He was only trying to find the beach. For some reason Matron wouldn't let him go to bed yet. Why didn't she believe him? 

That night, Edea Kramer's body was burned to ashes. 

That night, Squall Leonhart lay broken on the pavement. As the rain washed away his blood and the people's burning rage, his form became ever more still... 

But when the sun rose, he blinked.   



	4. elements (of waking dreams)

  
**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
IV - elements (of waking dreams)   
  


Make a whole new religion,   
A fallen star that you cannot live without.   
And I'll feed your obsessions   
There'll be nothing but this thing that you'll never doubt.

You're not the only one.

-- _Supervixen_, Garbage

***

Drip.

The water dripped.

The water dripped from the eaves of a roof that was nameless. Buildings in the city are never named, unless their builder is rich enough to merit the privilege of forcing others to use one. Usually his own. Isn't that how it always is? Men with power or wealth or charm or the deadly trinity united burned so brightly they needed a way not to die. Any way - to preserve the name that became their lives, and mark them apart from the rest of the pack for eternity. A selfish immortality bred of fame. Different, but no happier than any anonymous structure of brick or stone to dot the landscape of your generic metropolis. Some villages, granted, were different - but they were small enough for even the tiniest shanty to be seen on the landscape. A moot point in any case, because the world of field and toil were far away from the simplicity of concrete.

And the water dripped, regardless.

It wouldn't have met his notice if he hadn't been in the throes of anonymity. The man, you see, was used to buildings with names and leaders with power and the grand dance of war and revolution. Caught, perhaps, in a the throes of a waltz so seamless that motion looked to be silence, and normality was naught but constant struggle. He didn't like laying prone there with the fall of water as vicarious escape from immobility. He wasn't used to alleyways in the dark of dawn, fresh with the smell of dewdrops and coal and cooling blood.

Blood. Ah yes, the blood. The water dripped into the blood. Made waves in a pool of scarlet, effect invisible but for the tiny ripples and a crash as loud as thunder. Such noise was audible only because the alley was quiet - too quiet for a Monday morn by far. The man knew the reasoning behind that, though.

He couldn't say the same for why he was alive. The pool of blood an rainwater bathed his hair as the shadows of the day appeared. The man - nay, the mercenary - had been prepared to die in the moment of his own fall. Just like the water, fated to plummet from the sky through no fault of it's own, that it's vital essence might be submerged in whatever undoubtedly greater state was to follow. Squall had been prepared to die since the day he was born.

Or maybe just for everyone to leave him. Was that the same thing?

The water dripped. It annoyed him. Everything hurt too much to move, and far more than he should be caring about. The job was done, his strings were cut, and the puppet lay discarded in an alley simply waiting for the motion to begin again.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The water was supposed to met a cool, clean, and pleasing stone. This man should have died - indeed, he _had_ died - in a place with a name. And when he fell there should have been a woman there to catch him, and spare the drop of water it's sojourn in metallic red fluid.

Breathing was becoming less labored. A miracle recovery - and he was owed one by some deity of a guardian. Lions take care of their own that way. Even grieving ones.

Could he move now?

No... there was pain.

Were his companions alright?

... irrelevant?

It was that morning, of all mornings, that a stream of water droplets bore witness to the denial of one Squall Leonhart. The ruthlessly independent loner who - without a goal, without a quest, without motion, without someone to back him - had no idea what to do on his own. Said lion was without his pride in the hinterlands, and his job was done. He'd never had to do anything more than the job. It wasn't part of the contract. Cura was easy, bones mended after the half-mystery of resurrection, but the mercenary still felt... off.

Squall decided that he must be injured. That was all.

He couldn't have known that a raven-haired someone was supposed to have been there to wish him awake from beside a hospital mattress. Someone to tell everything was alright, Balamb still stood, and his companions awaited him. Whisper to the man who his companions _were_, that they awaited, and that their quest had just begin. Make sure that he knew that this was both the job and something greater, that the mission wasn't over and all would be well if he just fought. Regardless of whether he wanted to hear it the message would have come through in snippets of worry and stilted conversation.

But he was alone. There was no way for the lion to know what his pride wished of him or if he still actually had one.

And so he lay there, motionless.

Eventually the water stopped dripping.

The mercenary, awkwardly rising then, started walking.

Squall didn't know where he was going, but it was better than staying still.

Even if one place was as empty and grey as another.

***

Robert Carroway was fixed in place - almost a statue of any robust and undaunted military commander. Except he wasn't quite so robust and undaunted at the moment. Understandable, given the situation.

Rinoa. It was always Rinoa, wasn't it? Always the one to be left behind.

Carroway was a patriotic sort of man. Rare, really - the fabled great commander without any agenda beyond the security of the nation. Almost a fairytale figment, embodied in one stolid man with a starched frame and broken heart.

The sunrise was empty that morning. It always was. Yet it hadn't been so hollow forever. The general could remember almost everything about her, and she had loved watching the sun come up. It was an act she hadn't had much time for as a lounge singer. Late nights with lonely men mending alcohol-soaked souls. And Carroway had loved her all the more for it - loved her since he could rescue her from that.

She'd sang this song there, the one time he had gone to see her. A very pretty something that the general knew was never meant for him. Hyne knew he hadn't cared that much, thinking there would always be time. Maybe it was selfish, or rash, or a mistake - and most likely all three - but she had seemed happy, as he proposed under the rising sun. That might only have been him, though. You could never tell with Julia. She was so much more used to subtleties than he was, able to read in him what he had never been able to fathom in chocolate eyes...

He'd been on a mission when she died. Consumption, the doctors said. Julia had.. asked for someone, on her deathbed, and Carroway knew better than to ask his name.

And then it was just him and Rinoa. It always came back to Rinoa. She'd had a hard time, with mummy dead and daddy gone. But he'd had a mission, a job to do. There were so many people depending on him - there would be more time for her, wouldn't there? At some point? Robert Carroway had always believed that.

Stone was supposed to have all the time in the world. It tended to forget the quicksilver nature of elements surrounding it. And though there probably was an actual stature of the man somewhere or other, General Carroway put nature to shame.

The light of dawn was refracted in a cup of scotch the general clutched in callused, battle-worn hands. He didn't often indulge, given it's inappropriateness during duty hours. It was so much more indicative of the true soldier or leader to bottle feelings up instead of drown them. But honestly, at the moment, he didn't give a damn.

Wanting to be loved hadn't done it for him. Neither had wanting, quite desperately, to be a good father. Both had abandoned him, and the statue still stood.

Or was that because he abandoned them? Shouldn't he have been looking for Rinoa last night, instead of concerning himself with a nation of strangers? It wasn't as if he hadn't paid his dues - Esthar bastards. It wasn't as if he hadn't sacrificed Julia and Rinoa along with his heart for the mythical greater good. And world be damned, he was tired of it - the distaste in his daughter's eyes, and the emptiness in Julia's gaze. He hadn't wanted things to be this way, he hadn't wanted...

This right thing always seemed to put plush carpets under his feet, and cheering crowds in the alleys. But it was never right for anything he cared about, and throwing himself into his work at death or flight never helped on mornings like this.

When he'd locked her up, she'd been crying. She looked so much like Julia - always had. Not like him, with bony, craggy features and a profile more suited to the trenches than fashion magazines. If he had not been a man of stone, they might have loved him, though.

"Lieutenant Xen?"

The statue stood, composed, to form a pooling shadow against the streaming sunlight.

"Sir?"

"Tell Almasy I'll make the trade."

And in glow of morning, solid stone finally broke.

"But sir, I hardly think that...."

"I have plans, don't worry. Just do it."

"Yes sir."

***

The exchange, so significant historically, ended up occurring three blocks of the right of where historians would peg it. A sad fate for the structures that bore witness to the event to endure, for surely they had earned their place on the tourist maps. It wasn't often that ordinary residential streets had a shot at fame.

On the day of the exchange, said byway was unknowingly paying dues to forever remain unacknowledged. Snipers lined either side, prepared to kill or die for a scrap of an armband.

Soldiers are like that.

"He's fucking _late_."

Seifer Almasy was not a soldier. He killed for much better reasons.

"I- I 'm sure that there was simply a miscommunication sir. If you'll just..."

"Excuse me?" the previously speaking technician, looking up, found that Seifer was grinning. Over the past twenty-four hours he had learned that this was never a good sign.

"I.. apologize, sir. I was out of line."

"Good. You got through to the Garden?" the blonde questioned rather aggressively. His technician had also discovered that during a distinctly hellish evening, and pointedly decided to ignore it. There was only so much metal turmoil one could derive from such an overwhelming personality. If a guy thought about it to much, he got the feeling that he would be consumed by whatever grand vision smoldered in those green eyes.

Burned up. Burned out.

"Yes, sir."

Reduced to ash and scattered to the wind.

***

Fujin Asher woke up wearing her steel-toed boots.

Not really all that uncomfortable, actually. She'd broken the things in ages ago, and it wasn't like the albino hadn't spent quite a few nights in them. One always had to be ready, when one was a soldier, and fighting without her steel-toed boots would bloody well be like cutting out her right eye. Again. And who the hell know what would be expected of here here? The soldier hadn't even meant to go to sleep - though the necessity for rest in the face of the day she'd had was obvious. Not getting enough sleep was just an invitation to terminal mistakes, and she damn well knew it.

But she was.... waiting. Not like she cared. But for instructions.

Said boots, worn but adequately polished, were slowly stretched as the commander yawned and realized that it hadn't just been her footwear that had stayed. Fujin was decked out in full combat gear with the addition of a long black coat that probably owed more of it's existence to Headmaster Martine's mid-life crisis.

Well, former Headmaster Martine. Right. She'd killed him. Dammit, morning was annoying that way. Grogginess was something that the soldier strongly disapproved of. People did stupid things when they were still blinded by sleep. Like getting up out of the chair they'd managed to contort themselves to sleep in, and wobbling unsteadily within the folds of an unfamiliar badge of command.

But if she'd had a bout of uninterrupted sleep...

Seifer hadn't called. Fuck. She'd waited half the night, and he hadn't bloody called. That the hell had happened to him? Wasn't he supposed to be fine in Delling Palace? Hadn't he said that if he couldn't make it back to take command he'd at least fill her in?

Bah. Mornings were _not_ Fujin's forte. Gentle breezes, pretty sunrise, the awakening of the world - screw that. She always seemed to wake up to find things ten times worse than they had been the night before.

So Seifer hadn't called.

Not that she was worried, of course. Seifer could handle himself. Really, he could.

Really.

And at least that goddamned sorceress was dead. She'd learned that much from one of her people hours ago.

But what the hell did he expect her to do with an entire Garden? Seifer was supposed to have returned and relieved her of command eight hours ago.

Body stiffening into working form once more, Fujin rubbed her eye and made for the light switch she half dreaded turning on. On the one hand, it meant that she'd have some relief from sitting around and thinking useless worried thoughts. On the other....

Backlights were joined by the real thing, spartan opulence of the chamber once more visible. And three point five seconds later, the door opened.

"Heya, Fuuj! It's actually pretty nice out, ya know? Hope ya got a good sleep and stuff, " beaming brighter than the overhead light fixtures was a freshly scrubbed Raijin, obviously out of bed hours ago. He was carrying, as always, a tray of assorted healthy breakfast treats. Leave it to Raijin to worry about eating right at a time like this. The woman he addressed, in the mean time, was nothing if not bleary-eyed with mussed hair, clogged pores, and teeth that felt like they hadn't been brushed in a week.

"..."

Raijin was a morning person. Fujin was not.

"Have some tea, ya know! They've got some great stuff here, " the fighter's visage grew a bit clouded as he handed her a steaming mug. He'd been trying to wean her off coffee for months - yammering on about antioxidants or some other stupid bodybuilder thing - with limited success. " Any word from Seif? He call ya last night while I put the kiddies ta..."

The albino didn't bother to dignify that with a RAGE.

".... no?" inch by inch, the bronze face fell.

"No," the commander muttered, taking a swig of now liberally sugared beverage. Damn, she wanted some coffee.

"I... I don't wanna sound mean, 'cause he's our friend, ya know? And we're a posse. Posses aren't supposed to stick together, right? But, ya know, just lately, ya know, with everything that's been..."

He'd always babbled when he was nervous, ever since they were little kids. Hell, he babbled even when he was fine. Mostly because they'd been all each other had, abandoned in the homeless shelters. Funny, that two scared kids who became family at random were in all likelihood descended from opposing sides of the same orphan factory.

"I know, " the commander softly interrupted.

And as much as she hated it, the albino needed him still. Fujin wished that she could have needed Seifer, but he wasn't the one who had brought the porcelain between her lips to calm nerves with chamomile. Seifer was blind and unreliable, and Fujin couldn't afford to ignore it any more. While Raijin...

Was her best friend, whether she liked it or not. If soldiers had best friends. She was pretty sure they didn't.

" Don't worry. I'll make things - _we'll_ make things right with him. We'll get him back. The real Seifer wouldn't have done any of this," the soldier ventured a tiny, unaccustomed smile.

"Yeah, you're right. And with that Sorceress gone he might be better, ya know!" Raijin smiled too, though his was far more easy and uncomplicated. Unconflicted. Whatever.

"WORK, " Fujin nodded, setting down the teacup which managed to look more delicate dwarfed in his hands than hers. She refused to get his hopes up - and hers never had been to begin with.

Damn, she wished that Raijin could be right. But an orphan could never count on fate when the world was so large, wind dwarfed to insignificance by fickle humanity. Fujin had been left behind - discounted - too many times for that.

Now it was time to eliminate any professors who might attempt to take back a position of authority or overly irritate a touchy student body. She'd need to appoint people to positions of command more competent than those Galbadian Disciplinary morons. SeeD candidates were likely - they at least had the training, though inexperience and arrogance would have to yield to discipline. Supplies needed to be worked out and troublemakers had to be chastised and watch rotations to be organized and a group of children surprisingly her age waiting to be convinced that she was their Commander. There were a thousand and one things better to do than worrying about the man she was unsure could ever love her, and work had always been a draught sweeter than weakness.

And so she did them.

***

The unscried destination of Squall Leonhart was not a street unfairly ignored by history, or Delling Square for that matter. Despite his proximity to the latter place and it's adjacent palace, he knew better than to wander out into the open in his injured state. Riots and half-finished coups did not make for the most stable of situations - especially in the eyes of a trained mercenary.

It really was just as well. If Squall hadn't stuck to the back alleys he might have missed the barricades which blocked off half of the city. He also probably would have been captured and summarily executed in ritual combat with a blonde pyrokinetic, but that was besides the point. If the mercenary hadn't seen several squadrons of armed men - sporting some distinctive, improvised, and apparently defining blue armbands - he might not have turned around.

And we all know the difference a second makes, now don't we?

One could say that the man was dazed, and most likely the soldier actually was in clinical shock. Cura doesn't do anything for that, and a person doesn't really think about the subtleties of healing spells when recovering from a near death experience. That, however, was also not the point. Neither was the disconcerting feeling that Irvine must have done something to Rinoa. That particular gnawing of the gut had been folded up and banished away to whatever dusty cupboard Squall shut most feelings of hindrance to the mission in. Betrayal didn't really sting in the numbing shock of morning, and he had never trusted the sniper in any case.

He should have known better. That was unprofessional. He'd be on better guard next time.

Still not the point, but close.

Peering around a corner to the stark glory of an impromptu blockade, Squall realized that wandering about the city fall into the realm of the pointless. Which it most assuredly would. There was no way to find his employer despite the eerily clear streetscape, and his companions were in the inaccessible part of the city. Captured? Maybe. The mercenary's problem?

... maybe.

Squall didn't care about them, of course. Really, he didn't. He cared about himself - the aching in his bones, the job to be done, the empty, meaningless role to play in someone else's useless conflict. Orphans never really had a choice about that, but the lion made a point of not needing any orphans or their leechlike benefactors - mostly for vague reasons that didn't really bear pondering but surely involved the avoidance of hurt. Concern too was locked away. It slept forgotten in a coffin sealed with a dash of unremembered loss.

What, then, was a SeeD clad in shining black leather carrying a rather large gunblade to do? Conspicuousness in possible enemy territory was never a good plan, and his apparel certainly wasn't suited to camouflage.

This problem had never come up before. SeeD had never lost.

SeeD. Orders. That was what the lion needed. Instructions as pertaining to possible countermeasures against the fallen Sorceress's remnants. The directive to kill or bring salvation to those he refused to regard as friends. Verification of a contract signed with what must have been pity or machiavellian skill.

Squall had no job to do. The mission was over. Untouchably blue sky loomed above and he was....

Alone. He should be less uneasy about that. He should be a lot of things. Why wasn't he?

But there was one place he could go to get his orders, collect reinforcements, and get into fighting shape again. Not to mention figuring out what on earth was going on. Completion of the mission demanded a briefing on the next.

Taking care to avoid the less skilled military chaff, the mercenary quietly slipped away from the front lines in a war soon to end.

Obviously, the only way to contact Cid on a secure channel would be through Galbadia Garden. It seemed to be unguarded, hopefully signaling at least a partial SeeD victory in whatever conflict had split the battleground in two. There was no logical way that the under-trained Galbadian Army could take a Garden by siege, even if they did have a less than conventional backer.

***

"Finally," Seifer couldn't help but mutter as a small procession approached their position from the other side of the street. Patience had never been his strong point, though he'd never admit it.

An old man led them - too frail to stand up to Seifer. And, make no mistake, the knight was not going to let his sorceress be used by the deluded dinosaur who was probably responsible for half the orphans in Galbadia.

People like Robert Carroway where what was wrong with the world. Honorless scum.

" A pleasure to see you, General Carroway, " the Knight smirked, surrounded by his bodyguards and with a cloaked, diminutive figure in tow.

Carroway gave all the reaction of a piece of granite, refusing to bend to any sort of charisma. It was just as well that he didn't want to play games. Seifer had a sorceress to protect - and much as he hated to acknowledge it, his one last hope.

"Where's Rinoa?"

Seifer, still smirking, shook his head, " I'm not stupid, old man. Your precious little girl doesn't come home to daddy until that stretcher is being held by my men. Understand? "

"Now you listen..."

The Knight raised his gunblade, abruptly tiring of the facade, " Now, you honorless dog. "

Warily, the general motioned his followers towards the center point twixt sides of the street. The men had deposited a frail looking blonde there, who was soon to be scooped up by Seifer's own troops. He checked the sudden urge to rush to his Sorceress's side with the knowledge that all his soldiers knew exactly what awaited them if they harmed a hair on her head.

"Rinoa?" that bitch Carroway, looking discomfited, rasped impatiently from his pole of the alleyway. "You bastard. You said that..."

"Yes, I did, didn't I?" laughable, laughable old man.

"But... why would you want to keep her?"

"To keep you from striking back at me, old man," this was frigging hilarious. The pansy looked like he was about to cry. Idiot.

The general, now looking more fragile under layers of regalia, spat a reply, "Ands you talk of honor. I was ready to.."

"Honor? _ Honor!? _" now he _was_ laughing, this was absolutely priceless. "This _is_ honor, fucker. You took the parents away from hundreds of kids I met, and it was your fucked up war with Esthar that robbed me of mine. I grew up _alone_, do you understand that? Do you know what it's like to have nobody?"

The trees burst into flame - a dramatic effect worthy of a knight, but more of an emotional by product. When the laughing stopped, Seifer growled.

"I grew up like this because of people like you, you honorless fucking bastard. Shipped off to some war factory of a Garden because you didn't want to _bother_ with the brats whose parents you murdered. And now you have the audacity to protest my being. What the hell do you think gives you the right to have your family all nice and shiny and cozy, with all the ones you've ruined? Why are you _special_? You daughter is with me, Carroway . She might even still love me, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is poetic justice, old man. This is _my_ honor."

And as the foliage fell to inferno, so did the blood of an impossibly white knight.

"Welcome to our hell, General Carroway. Welcome to the fucking inferno."

The eyes of a hundred soldiers were fixed on him, and he devoured their attention in the absence of the wind. Fueling the scorching heat of a blaze too unnatural to die, their features lit in it's intensity. No one was surprised when it started in General Robert Carroway's clothing as well, one outstretched - ivory clad hand beckoning his death.

Fire consumes, and burns the purer for it.

"This is for the orphans."

And when the screaming stopped, Seifer's visage was back to that omnipresent smile. His voice had moderated and the wind was deathly still.

"You there - Carroway's bitches. You join the crusade or you die. Is that clear to you?"

When the bloodshed ended he had no shortage of volunteers. It wouldn't be long until they took the manor.

***

At a time like this, there was one word that came to mind.

Shit.

Hella shit.

Hella, hella _shit_.

'Kay, so those were multiple words. The meaning got across, right?

Right.

So what the hell was going on?

"Yo, Selph, " a tattooed youth prodded, peeking into the room across the hall from his own. Carroway Manor was pretty posh compared to home - but then, pretty much everywhere was nicer than him an' Ma's house. They weren't exactly drowning in money, even if Garden tuition _was_ free.

Ma always said that if she'd been able to afford it he would have gone to a proper school. Ch'yeah - like that wouldn't have been insanely boring.

However snobby surroundings, though, Selphie still wasn't answering him.

"Seeeeeellllph.... c'mon. I didn't mean to call your hair hella weird last night, I just was tired and stuff. It's really pretty, I promise."

Hella yeah right.

"I know you're awake in there! I heard your alarm."

'That was meeeean, Zell, " Selphie pouted from behind a half closed door. Only Selphie could make a pout sound chirpy. Not exactly the kind of pal he was too enthused to have, but who else did he know here? All those Galbadians were weird, and the martial artist _still_ had no clue what to do without his buddy Squall around. This was _so _not good.

Okay, so he was worrying a liiiiiitle too much...

"I said I was sorry.. geeeze, Selphie," it wasn't his fault her hair sucked immensely.

""Kay!" grinning cheerfully, the petite young woman popped out to meet him.

"Turn that frown upside down, Zell! We got the Sorceress, right?"

"Yeah, but..." this whole thing was giving him bad vibes and stiff, that was what. Instead of making slight, nervous motions to burn off excess energy, the fighter was for once slumped against the wall. A wall with better wallpaper than at his house. It looked kinda girly and flowery, but that was probably Rinoa's mom's ...err... mom-type influence stuff.

"But what, Zell? It's a great daaaay, the birds are..."

"Selphie, " the blonde interrupted, face just a little bit grave, " Rinoa's dad's gone."

"But.... why would he leave? Maybe... "

Startled, the mustard-clad spellcaster found herself pulled by one of far superior strength into his room. He didn't like pushing girls around - them not being so strong and all. Grandpa would have disapproved. But what the hell else was he supposed to do?

"Squall and Irvine and Rinoa aren't here either. I reeeealy don't like this, " his normally buoyant voice had descended to a harsh whisper.

"If they're not here, they must be at the Garden. I'm getting hell bad vibes, Selph.. you think you could take care of Instructor Trepe on your own? There's, like, lots of other soldiers here and stuff... and I reeealy think we outta find Squall. There's no way they're letting us into the com room and..."

Selphie giggled. What the hell was that? Stupid _rude_ Selphie... his Ma woulda never put up with that during a serious conversation.

"Selph," rolling his eyes, the blonde silently begged for a comprehensible answer. He didn't get chicks at _all_.

"No problem! Yeesh, Zell... I can blow up anyone who gets near the Instructor!" she flashed him a v sign with her hands for victory. In fact, Selphie looked about to burst into 'booyaka's any minute. What did booyaka _mean_, anyways? Zell reeeealy didn't get chicks. " Make sure to call back, hey? "

Nodding, Zell night jogged out into the hallway and waved goodbye, " No problem! Even if these doofs won't tell us anything, I can get a phone from Martine and fill ya in!"

***

He'd come back to the house to see Selphie.

He didn't know why he had come back to the house to see Selphie, but he _had_ come back to the house to see Selphie.

_Notmyfoultnotmyfaultnotmyfault..._

It was a simple matter to slip in one of the windows. A sniper was trained in stealth, and the guards seemed occupied.

_Her fault? Is that why you wanted me to come here?_

_No. She smiled a nice smile. Like you did. At the beach._

Irvine hadn't slept that night, and it was noticeable. Bloodshot eyes lolled their way across the room - panning. This wasn't the one where she had been. He would find the one where she had been - it had girly pink wallpaper.

_She didn't remember._

_But must be their fault. Not mine. Not yours or hers. Nononononono...._

Quistis would be somewhere too, wouldn't she? She had had a nice room too.

_**Her **fault._

_Big sisters are s'posed to make things right._

Grinning, he headed off to find his two objectives. It was funny, though - he thought he heard Selphie in Quistis' room. And some men.

_We can go to the beach together, can't we Matron?_

They weren't going to hurt her. Their blood spattered all about the room, and their uniforms shredded just like Matron's had. but that was okay. If they had their bayonets raised like that they must want to hurt Selphie, and that meant that it was _their _fault.

And when the last crimson rivulets of their life were flowing down a very socked Selphie's dress, she smiled at him. The good kind. It wasn't long until she ran up and hugged him as powerfully as a tiny frame would allow.

"Irvy!!! Thank goodness you're here! Instructor Trepe is gone, and all those mega-crazy Seifer followers were gonna try and hurt me."

"Quisty isn't here? That's horrible," a touch of concern colored his voice. It was her fault and she was just wandering around out there, doing who knows what to innocent..

_Her fault. **Not** mine._

"Isn't it though? Look, Irvy, we've gotta get out of here. Getting, like, exploded and stuff would be _mega_ uncool."

_Yes. The beach! You were right about her, Matron. Maybe she does kinda remember..._

_But the rest is their fault._

"Yeah - we should find the others, eh Selph? And may I say that the new color scheme suits you."

She giggled. It was cute. Just like when they were little.

"You're silly, Irvine. Now lets get my nunchaku and go kick some ass! Booyaka!!"

_You were right, Matron. You're always right._


	5. of eden

  
**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**V - of eden**   
  
  


This isn't Burger King. You can't have it your way.

-- Oz

If you listen to the poets, they'll tell you that a big, bad event in someone's life changes them. If you lose the woman you love or your legs, you suddenly find a kind of beauty inside yourself. That's what they say, the poets. Truth is, you don't. After a big, bad event, you only become more of the person you already were.

-- Oz

***

Quistis Trepe.

The new incarnation of his sorceress, embodiment of his dreams, and catalyst for the formation of a better world. Beautiful, chosen, and ultimate heir to something more important than a throne. The power for revolution - or was that restoration? Ability granted at the dawn of tie to fulfill the crusade for a perfect world, embodied in a perfect being. Faithful, wise, enchanting, and the only companion - the only purpose - that one could ever need.

And it was _Quistis Trepe_.

How fucked up was _that_?

It wasn't like she wasn't pretty - hell, her loser fanclub had provided some entertainment for his posse on more than one occasion. And she did fill out that pink vest thing pretty well - though far from he pale exotic that his Mistress had been. But Seifer would be damned if she wasn't the most foolish, ignorant cow he'd ever met. Wandering around trying to "bond" with the students and pissing him off at any available opportunity just to be that bitch Leonhart's love slave. Pathetic drooling bitch of a puppydog followed stupid femmy leather-boy around all the time.

The teacher looked pathetic, draped in her four-poster bed like a rotting vegetable. That ever-so perfect blonde hair had turned a darker, uglier shade draped over off-white pillows. The palace staff who'd found themselves in the midst of an army brought them. Smart of them.

What had his Sorceress seen in her, to consider her of all people _worthy_? There was no way in hell that Her Royal Highness Ice-Queen Trepe would back up Seifer with the power he wanted, in the role that was proper. The mistress that the world needed just as much as it needed a Knight. Just the way things were, that. And that bitch would sooner play her little punk-ass headgames with all the poor little kiddy students than play any relevant role in society. He saw how she got off al making them all dependent on her - sickening, that a Sorceress would take such pleasure from something so petty.

Edea had been off guard. He should have been on it, but he faltered. An unforgivable mistake, but a Knight did penance as was required. Perhaps...

Perhaps his Sorceress hadn't been able to find someone else in time. Perhaps she'd just needed a shall .. why else would 'Trepe-Teacher" be comatose right now?

His Sorceress hadn't known what to do, so she'd taken the obvious rout and left things to her Knight. Of course. Of course!

The air in the room was as stagnant as the faded luxury of antique furniture and a husk of a woman. And it was going to stay that way. Why turn on the lights, let in the sunshine, or coax a breeze to enter? Quistis Trepe was unworthy - Mistress Edea had seen that. She'd put the beauty to sleep so that he could pick a suitable replacement. Someone free of the taint of Squall Leonhart, that passion for self-indulgence and useless apathy that plagued humanity.

And, straitening himself after brushing back the immobile woman's flaxen hair, Seifer had an idea. Only smart little boys make it into the gunblade program, you know.

The light brightened and, reflected, brought a glimmer to blue eyes as the White Knight entered tastefully lit hallways. Everything was going to be _perfect._

And perfect is forever.

***

It was mid-afternoon when Seifer called her. Mid-afternoon when Fujin's heart collapsed in a pathetic pile of goo out of relief. Mid-afternoon when the students were finally organized into rudimentary squadrons. Mid-afternoon when she was able to stop standing with that usual ramrod posture and retreat to Martine's office and a comfortably decadent armchair for the news.

It was mid-afternoon, and the living was easy.

But the living is _never_ easy. So that was probably just denial.

Seifer had taken the city without a hitch - although she still didn't know what the bloody game he was playing. He was fine, he said. Repeatedly, though she'd at least had the self-control to only ask once.

Everything was okay. Yup. Just keep repeating that and it might end up true. The albino felt like a self-help tape, Raijin, or possibly an unholy combination of the two. Bloody hell, she could see it now. Next up in the Garden gossip mill - the decline and fall of Fujin Asher. Once a dedicated enforcer, now resorting to new-age meditation and healing mantras to soothe her poor, aching heart of the rigors of true love.

... even when he'd been up half the night killing people he looked damn sexy. Maybe even more so. Eyes half lidded, hair kind of mussed in a way that would be inexcusable for her but managed to make him look kind of adorable and if he knew a word of what she was thinking he'd gut her.

So she stopped thinking it. Pointlessness.

A sunbeam wandered in through windows which had been recently freed of thick brocade. There would have been dust motes in any other room to occupy here eye, but Martine had been scrupulously clean. Upon further inspection it seemed that few clouds a few clouds were scattered here and there to disturb the stereotypical cheeriness of it all. Just as well, all in all. The sky can't fool the wind, and for every silver lining there's a dark cloud.

So he wanted to see her in person tomorrow. The knight had seemed almost disappointed in his triumph, trademark grin missing a little something. Was it the death? He'd never been one to mope about like that but the blonde had been so different lately. Maybe something about his new sorceress was upsetting. Possibly both. He was uncharacteristically off balance, though, if the commander read him right. And she _always_ read him right. Shit. The worst thing was that it all came back to those damned Sorceresses. The silver haired soldier was bloody tired of them. A pain in the ass - reminding her of what she'd never be with all that mysticism bullshit. At least until her trip to the city the pale commander could nurse fantasies of the new 'mistress' being some sixty-year old hag.

There were creases of palest pink where the woman had been leaning on an oaken desk. Scars of time that never hurt, never deform, never heal, and serve as cruel reminder or badge of endurance. Dammit, she had to stop being some useless brooding loser like Squall Leonhart and...

"Commander, I have two young men here who demanded to see the leader of the Garden."

A student mercenary's voice intruded on her inner monologue. Good.

"Headmas... " the leader of the two trailed off, jaw possibly more frozen than usual. It pained her to admit it, but the man was probably as good as she was in that department. The other, shorter entrant looked as if he'd been caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Or maybe like a fish. Yes - a weak, helpless, slobbering, too-stupid-to-outwit-_Raijin_ fish.

Which was pretty damn bad, for even a barnyard fowl. Seifer would owe her for weeks if the security camera was on...

Or at least the Seifer she hoped to see tomorrow would.

"Welcome to my Garden," said the spider to the flies. It was decided in that moment that she'd have to use full sentences more often - any anxiety about doing so conveniently forgotten for pride's sake. Making chicken-wuss' eyes bug out like that was worth it.

***

"We gotta keep moving - those Seifer guys look _mega_ pissed off. You think we should go to your Garden and meet up with Zell?"

Irvine, surprisingly, nodded. He'd been kinda spaced out for a while, but that wasn't really surprising. You know - with the whole assassination thing last night and all. Sweet of him to burst in and help her, even if she coulda froze all of those losers in their tracks. But hey - when a cute guy like Irvine Kinneas decides to play knight in shining armor who's going to complain?

Poor guy. Prolly all upset about how the whole killing thing turned out. Not his fault, though - he'd done his job, right? So she'd have to cheer him up!

And if anyone could cheer a guy up while soaked in blood and hiding from half of an angry mob, it was Selphie Tilmitt Self-proclaimed SeeD morale officer du jour and all around great company.

'Sides, then she didn't have to mull over how much this whole situation sucked and get all depressed. Or be all broody like Squally 'cause her friends weren't around. Who likes a girl like that? Not people looking for kids to adopt- that's for damn sure. No wonder she didn't get taken as a kid.

"Soooo... let's go shopping first!"

Clinging to his arm like a limpet wasn't a bad start - everyone like a good friendly pseudo-hug, right? Right! And her plan was sooooo gonna work.

" ... hunh?' he was cute when he was flustered.

"There's blood all over my dress - and that's hyper-conspicuous! We gotta get us some disguise type stuff to get past all those loser Seifer follower people," keeping up a screen of sunny chatter, Selphie started to steer the young man away from the street corner where they had been standing.

"Ummm... okay. I guess we won't be able to go anywhere if they stop us."

"Exactly! Damn, Irvy.. this is gonna be _so_ cool! Premium weapon and clothing merchandise form the best stores on the continent," Selphie prouced a cheerful wink while tightening her hold, " and you can bet that there'll be some 'unclaimed' merchandise with all the looting from that riot. Booyaka!"

When you're learning about Guardian Forces, there's something they tell you. Well, not all of 'you', but the 'you' that signifies all the magical fighting types. The others just need a few basic heals and some junction skills - no big. But when a large percentage of your mind is going to be taken up by an alien thingamabeing, you've gotta take precautions. Keep a part of yourself separate from that, so that they can't take your personality and shoot it all to weirdness. 'Cause with whacked stuff like that in your skull, you have to keep control. Keep separate.

"Sure. I can take us to the main strip, before we leave."

Keep it happy.

Keep yourself happy.

"Great! You are soo gonna love the coat I want to find for you. Gawd, I saw it when we were at the weapons store and.."

Selphie Tilmitt was a damn good magic user.

And when she lead her prize away, it was from a smoking crater full of dead bodies. Used to be Carroway manor, but hey, what's a girl to do when there's evidence to be covered up? The pigeons were already starting to land and pick at things, and she was a bit tired from summoning down Siren, but it would be all good. It didn't smell _that _bad, after all.

Couldn't have any evidence of Seed involvement. Nononooooo... the profs at Trabia didn't raise any fools.

It was a beautiful day, wasn't it? Selphie started to giggle. It was kinda cool, finally getting to use all those boring lessons.

***

It was midnight in the Garden.

Zell, being Zell, was running about punching air and loudly observing obvious facts to the chagrin of the rest of the class.

"Geeze, Squall...we gotta get the hell outta here!"

Squall, being Squall, was slouched and brooding. You too can swim to never-never land - just think depressing thoughts.

"... whatever."

Sometimes being imprisoned can be a scarring experience. Any nation, any time, any place, there is bound to be a trapped mass of coagulated humanity ready to assimilate or kill. Being incarcerated in the former Galbadia Garden Disciplinary Room was hardly the same thing. There was a fridge in the corner, and somebody had left behind a potted plant - though why on earth the disciplinary committee would _need_ a potted plant was beyond him. They obviously weren't all that disciplined.

There were only chairs to sleep on - unless one preferred the steel grating that passed for a floor. But what did Squall Leonhart care for that? He had more important things on his mind.

The darkness of midnight in the Garden suited him - even if their accommodations denied the birthright of any stars to pierce near blackness. Darkness is the bogeyman - black-winged angel to still the howl of a thousand beings coexisting in untraceable silicon webs.

Alone. Safe.

"Aren't you worried about Rinoa? And that Fujin chick is one crazy..."

Zell wasn't suited to silence. His footsteps echoed to shatter delicate glass.

_Rinoa? No.. no I'm not. I can't afford that._

"Our contract is up."

Their contract _was_ up. Squall shouldn't have let himself be compromised by an amateur - the black-clad youth could see that now. No wonder he'd missed Kinneas' instability. At least the only thing this whole mess was screwing over was his pride.

.... whatever. Water certainly cannot be trapped forever, even if it takes a lifetime for it to wear away at its captor. But if he waited long enough an opportunity would have to come up to sabotage things. Break out into those practical marble halls and make a break for Balamb. The last thing the lion needed was to be in the custody of one of Seifer's people. He didn't even want to know what she had been threatening them with this afternoon with those stilted syllables seemingly engineered to frustrate.

Probably were, too. An effective technique - had one of the profs recommended it? Unlikely. The uniforms, the drills - they liked to keep people the same in Garden.

The soldier didn't realize that he often carried it out himself, in the form of a too-familiar phrase.

"Yeeesh. I just thought you guys mighta had somethin' goin' on and..."

_What do these people keep expecting of me? I'm supposed to be 'feeling' something, apparently. I'm supposed to be experiencing some miracle or other that they think will make me 'right'. What I **need** is for them to leave me alone._

Not to mention exactly why he should care. Though that was the leather-bound fighter's query to most of the world. Life was made up of things to be done because without doing anything a guy goes stagnant. Missions for the sake of the mission. Not for any _reason_. Never, ever that. Things don't have reasons - especially people.

Leonhart accepted that.

"We didn't."

_Do they think I should ramble on uselessly and run about like that moron from my dream?_

"... oh. But aren't you just the littlest bit.."

"No."

_ I'm **good** at what I do. What else could they want?_

_Why am I supposed to want it?_

_People hurt people._

_I don't get it._

"Ummm.. alright, " Zell, pausing, eventually deflated. Patience would be easier in silence -though the bouncy blonde looked somewhat disappointed. If he'd been able to read emotions nearly as well as the average mudpuddle, Squall might even have recognized a little bit of pity.

_I don't get it at all._

But the refrigerator was making a whirring sort of noise to permeate the white and silver chamber. Ignoring it was easier than tuning out his would-be best friend - a status the lion also had trouble grasping.

_And they don't get me._

"Daaaaamn... shit, I am _so_ hungry... I can't believe we got suckered into walking right into her office. And now we're stuck here with no food and... " Zell continued in his cavalcade of claustrophobic whining.

_This is stupid._

Responding, the rustle of matted white fur indicated a shrug from the scarred youth, "What's done is done."

They had new objectives.

***

It takes a very sophisticated breed of madman to manipulate his delusions to circumstance. Only a cunning man can call upon such a weapon. Because people fear what they don't expect, and though one might expect insanity in a madman, one would never expect a bout of cold calculating intelligence. A brilliant facade. So forget the Zantetsuken Reverse or the Cross Sword. What kept Seifer Almasy in power was madness, a flash of cunning here and there, and a shitload of charisma. An unholy trinity if there ever was one, all prepped and ready for the devil himself.

The rational side had invited his old friend here tonight. If illusions hadn't been more valuable to the Knight than the tattered remains of what might have been a productive life, he would have known that that was the side she loved. In any case, it knew that she would back him up. And she really was kind of good looking.

But maybe madness is just another word for optimism. The clinical reaction of someone exposed for too long to reality and survival and other crazed things. Productive life, meaning mercenary work, was a bitch. Goddamn Gardens pimped you for all you were worth while they sucked your soul dry with the killing - draining nations to fill the pockets of whatever fucked-up species NORG was. They had turned so many like him into nothing but honorless degenerates. People like Squall Leonhart. People without _dreams_.

Hands whitened slightly as he gripped the arm of the chair. It was surrounded by veils, as she'd liked it. He'd been keeping it this way despite the fact it was kind of pansyish - whatever his Mistress wanted, his Mistress would have.

"Are you finished?"

".... yes, sir, " the beleaguered communications tech whose name Seifer had absolutely no reason to bother to learn was skulking about. Making arrangements and the like. The sort of femmy, pansy work that the Knight wouldn't touch with Hyperion. He was seated on the Sorceress' throne, keeping the soon to be filled pedestal occupied. The Knight didn't trust his "loyal commanders" farther than their ashes would spread.

"Everything's ready, then?"

"...sir."

"A fucking yes or no would facilitate communication here, dipshit. If this is fucked up because of you it's your ass that is going to be the pyre tonight, do understand me?"

"Yes, sir!" the tech stiffened, relaxing once more when it appeared that his commander was not in a killing mood, " Found some of the good stuff in the old President's cellars, sir. Rounded up some chefs, too."

"Good. Anything concerning my Sorceress is to be the best. "

The best.

Just like he was always meant to be.

Seifer Almasy never failed, and he bloody well wasn't about to start now.

***

Relief and anxiety had been dancing in the depths of her stomach all the way there. A precious little tango - or perhaps a waltz. Something classy and bound to be disrupting. The commander knew, of course, that the whole thing was moronic. Yet it isn't often that one has such a violent coupling to deal with - especially if one is Fujin Asher. Make no mistake, though - there are no butterflies for soldiers. Unless some of leaden clockwork had deigned to grace her with their razor wings.

He'd sent a car. He never would have sent a car before. She could ride. Something was wrong, and suspicion blindsided a devoted heart with all the grace of a half-tonne truck.

It only got worse when the pale woman was lead to the chamber he wished to meet her in.

It was too perfect.

She was underdressed and something was wrong and it was too perfect and oh dear _Hyne_...

"Do you like it?" a voice purred from behind. Seifer. Yes, that was Seifer.

"Why..." Fujin blinked, then managed to breath. If her lungs took in any air, she didn't notice.

A shock to the system. Too long in the sun. A short circuit in the brain. Some kind of tumor? A hallucination? She'd read in Military Psych class about...

"You can sit down, you know," snow-white trenchcoat drifted towards her, guiding her to a chair. A mahogany chair. A very expensive, antique mahogany chair. In front of a very expensive, very antique mahogany table. With a creme tablecloth. And plates.

If it wasn't for the rest of the room Fujin would have thought he'd simply called a dinner meeting with whatever furniture was laying around Delling's quarters. The knight was like that. Impulsive and disorganized.

So why the room looked like something out of one of her romance novels she had no idea.

The room was airy, in a humid sort of way. Darkness has a pleasant way of shrinking things to fit. Strewn about were veils and shrouds with a dozen ivory candles to light their way. Light not quite the languid honey it should have been crept through such barriers and up the walls, to falter at the death of stone. Ending a beginning of one of the most amazing vistas the woman had ever seen - Delling City all lit up in the perfect purple cotton-candy twilight. The whole affair was matched in cream colored table setting, cream colored silverware, and a delicate burst of white roses in the center. Silver-lined. Everything was silver-lined, to glimmer so within the light.

Bloody hell.

"Is something wrong?" Seifer had taken a seat as well, the woman as pale as her surroundings suddenly registered. And he was using that voice he'd always pulled on Rinoa and the other random skirts. All fire and snake oil, tom cat ready to hunt down the mouse and melt her down in a cloud of smoke an expensive perfume.

Seifer liked to own things. If it hadn't been damn sexy, it would have annoyed the hell out of her. But the Knight was just a bundle of contradictions today, now wasn't he?

_Shit, Fujin. Get a hold of yourself._

"NOTHING," she couldn't help but relapse, sinking into one of those chairs that's never quite soft enough for comfort, and not so hard as to make one want to leave. And that was good, since she could have stayed that way forever.

"WHY, " the albino, framed in platinum, continued, " WHY.... MEET. CONTROL, YOURS."

"Of course I do. That's not why we're here," the man motioned to some shadow in the background just a bit too slowly and gracefully for things to be business. All with that shit-eating grin of him.

"Why are we here, then? You didn't come back to Garden because of the assassination, I assume, " Fujin breathed. Bloody romance novels had mushed her brain into gelatin.

Or maybe that was the way Seifer was staring at her.

Or maybe that was because this was an unholy alliance about every erotic thought she'd had for four years.

Or maybe that was because, unlike the object of her affections, she'd never demanded that dreams come true.

"You're not talking in phrases, " it was more a question that a statement.

He couldn't have known of her necessity, now could he? Better to play it cool before the rest of her faculties went to hell. Dammit, she was_ not_ some bitch in heat... " You're not swearing."

Though the man was taken aback for half a second, she couldn't read the reasoning behind his eyes. That, in and of itself, should have disturbed her. But everything... everything... it dulled her wits like it always had. Like she'd always fought.

_Perfect. It's perfect._

"No, I suppose I'm not."

_Maybe the Sorceress' curse is gone. Maybe he's seen what happened..._

_Maybe..._

_I knew he would._

The silence would have been uncomfortable - the way it is sometimes for people other than Fujin Asher. But Seifer, it seemed, had thought ahead. The soft strains of some old time song wafted their way through the already heady atmosphere - an old tune from the war era. It was too pretty to be of this time.

_Maybe he loves me._

_But he couldn't._

_But he wouldn't._

_But maybe he does._

_Why would he do this? Why else?_

"So?"

_Maybemaybemaybemaybe..._

_Maybe we could be together. Maybe it would be like old times... but better._

_Hyne, he's beautiful._

_Damn I'm weak and I don't care and maybe..._

"I want you."

Servants born from liquid shadow had poured two glasses of champagne. An excellent vintage.

But Fujin Asher was already drunk and barely breathing, exercising underused muscles to smile beatifically and finally realizing the high her beloved got from the fantasy.

_Maybe... yes._

"I want you to be the Sorceress."

_The Sorceress._

Candle light sparkled in amber depths as a crystal decanter was offered. But an eye had widened, the world stopped, and the wind was frozen in place most unnaturally. The maelstrom had choked on her won breath.

"You're not thirsty? That's alright. Quistis Trepe was brought in comatose yesterday - the heir to Edea. But she's not worth. We both know that. If we kill her with you beside she wont' know how to transfer the power to someone else."

_Heir. To the Sorceress._

_Maybe..._

_He wasn't swearing in front of her._

_He wouldn't swear in front of her._

"And who else could take Edea's place but you, Fujin? We've known each other for years. Look , I know it isn't what you were expecting, but we can do this. You know what has to be done. You've been here since the beginning, not like that... unpleasant and uncooperative Trepe. Between the two of us we could take the whole world, Fujin. Take the whole world and make sure that wars and killing and all the horridness that happened to us doesn't happen to anyone ever again. We could make dreams reality. As insane as it sounds... we could fix everything. "

_He wouldn't..._

_Maybe..._

_He wants the Sorceress._

"So what do you say? Are we a team? "

That grin again - and a glass of poison ambrosia once more offered.

"Shall we drink to it, _Sorceress_? "

_He wants the **Sorceress**_

The music was soothing, in it's own way. A little emotional, a little grandiose, but quite fitting given the decor. As such, Seifer Almasy could be forgiven for missing the signs. It's easy not to hear the sound of one heart breaking.

_But I thought.... he hasn't changed._

_How could he do this to..._

_Soldiers don't count._

_He wants the **Sorceress**._

"Are you alright? Maybe you should lie down..."

Hearts break every day - that's sure as hell not anything new to history repeating. But people don't think about what strikes the killing blow. And even if, by some miracle of compassion, they do bother to look for the murder weapon, they don't always find it. Don't know where to look. Because one can't recognize the weapon if one does not know it's characteristics, and people don't take the pedigree of a hope released with countless evils seriously.

Hope is a double edged sword.

_How **could **he?_

_... enough._

"NO!"

***

No is a word that cuts like a knife, grazing past the vulgar and overestimated heart to hit a raw nerve. And if there ever was an anesthetic for the ages it was anger. Fast, free, and effective against any twist of dagger or sword.

A gloved fist clenched, crushing proffered crystal . It couldn't hope to pierce the leather, though rivulets of alcohol fell to mar cerulean cloth below. Funny, how the cotton of a shirt could match two eyes almost exactly - darkened and blurring.

"What did you say?" Seifer grated. Cats purr, and wolves growl. A creature as headstrong as the wolf cannot deny it's true nature forever.

_Goddamit... I made things perfect... and what do I get?_

"I said no. No more mind games. No more bullshit. No more dragging me and Raijin around by a goddamn leash. No more lying to myself. Because there's no Seifer to do that for."

The music had stopped by now - servants fleeing at the buildup of power it didn't take a trained warrior to sense. The candles had been extinguished, leaving Edea's veils to be torn by the same killing wind in near darkness. It was bright enough for their purposes, though. The combatants had risen somewhat shakily while white roses burnt.

" What about the _posse_? All those years - every fucking thing we went through together. I thought that you, of all people, would stand by me. Traitorous bitch."

Unworthy... unworthy traitorous bitch. He should have bloody known.

_Everyone leaves_

_Everyone_

_A Sorceress wouldn't... so I was wrong._

Sometimes people don't know what breaks hearts, but sometimes hearts don't know that they're broken.

"The Seifer I knew is the one who left. He came back - but it was _you_ that returned. I should have seen that. The Seifer I knew was an honorable man."

The Knights hair was being blown back, hearing disrupted by the rasping brush of air. The corresponding blaze had spread to his table, making it more than a little uncomfortably hot. For her, that is. He couldn't bloody care less.

"Bitch. To think that I thought you were worthy, " Seifer lost his smirk then - for the first and possibly most important time, "Leave. Get out. Leave me that Garden and fucking disappear. Rot in hell, for all I care. Just GO!"

_They always leave..._

"You're mad.. and the Garden is mine."

"Guards!"

She wasn't worthy - and they would take her away.

_Leave. They always leave. Nobody cares for the world like I do. Nobody loves me, loves that..._

_I'm going to** fix** it._

The entrance of a dozen burly men was almost unheard when, cornered like a rat, Fujin Asher elected to jump out of the window.

***

Shiiiiiiit. His muscles were gonna bloody _atrophy_ in here. And Squall was _so_ not helping.

"Duuuude... we gotta escape! "

The martial artist would said he was worried about that Rinoa chick, but he was adverse at the moment to getting his ass chewed out again. Well, not really chewed out, but anybody who knew Squall Leonhart know how he operated. The dude just sat there, doing that hugely creepy quiet thing, and you'd wait and wait and wait for him to blow up like any normal human being, but he'd just look at you and stare and stare and stare and...

Ugh.

Like Balamb water-torture. Hella creepy.

But even if Squall wasn't gonna be reasonable despite his constant reminders of how horribly, horribly confining this was - Zell hadn't slept all night - the martial artist was getting the hell out of here. Shit, that creepy Fujin chick was prolly bringing Seifer in right now to bust their asses and....

Dude. Not a good thought. Poor Ma had always told him to ignore bullies - she was kinda naive that way. Dincht knew enough to run the hell away if it was somebody as screwed up as _Seifer_.

"Alright, I'm gonna break down the door," Zell resolved. His buddy Squall raised an eyebrow. A single eyebrow. How the hell did he do that? It was kinda cool, actually. It was things like tha which had always made him kinda like they guy, weird-ass as he was.

"No, I'm gonna . I should be able to do this. Just watch me. I can't take this anymore, man..." the fighter started moving back and forth on the balls of his feet - warm-up after such a disgustingly still evening.

Squall blinked. Fine, then. He could just _be_ that way. Momma would've never let _him_ get away with such a bad attitude, but maybe he really was hung up on that Rinoa chick.

Right. So he was supposed to be able to do this. Grandpa had been able to do it. And what was a little steel door between a man and his freedom? Ugh - there weren't even any windows in this stupid place.

"Dincht genes, don't fail me now."

Time for the windup - shift weight for maximum impact. Find the weakest part of a non-solid object, feel the burst of air past one clenched fist and meet with...

Air? Warm stuff?

What the...

"Augh!"

Zell Dincht, choosing one of the most unfortunate moments in history to punch an inanimate object, had flown through the an entrance which had opened at just that moment. Hard. Strait into a warm body which stood between himself and the wall.

He hadn't quite processed that yet.

"I'm glad you're happy to see me, chicken-wuss, but gettin' off me might be good for your heath, ya know?"

When his brain did catch up to his body - truly a rare occurrence, Zell found himself staring up at Raijin Kasim. A Raijin Kasim backed by a dozen red-suited senior students, no less. A Raijin Kasim who looked very, very large, and at the moment moment very, very cranky.

"I need to talk to ya, prettyboy," Raijin made a large and motion in Squall's direction once Zell had pulled away sputtering.   
"Your boyfriend can come too, if he wants. But I need to talk to ya . An' I'd suggest ya don't try anythin', cause I've got ya surrounded and all, ya know?" "

Squall nodded and followed, not bothering to sustain eye contact with the large man or Zell. His sometimes friend, perturbed, followed behind muttering death threats.

"Hella goddamn.."

"Are we to see Fujin, then?"

Raijin's suddenly found the floor immeasurably interesting.

"No. Jus' move."

***

She didn't feel the tiny shards of glass at their conception when they pierced their mother's skin, nor did she register the spiderweb of lines forming to match her eyes. There was no gasp of pain, no accustomed sensation, no blandly agonizing torture when a light blue tunic was shredded. Time didn't slow down. Her eyepatch didn't fly away, forcing her to deal with the ramifications of more public deformity, though it was flipped above her ruined socket. A meaningful, cathartic epiphany due to mental and physical trauma did not occur. Touching events of emotional import were not flashed back to, and the woman did not by any means scream in panic. It was silent, in fact. Surreal in it's own way. But the fugitive didn't think of that, either.

She wasn't thinking at all.

Why think?

Fujin was _flying_.

Not really flying. Not really. The rational, soldierly, practical side of her tried to assert it's usual iron grip remind her that she was, in fact, headed for a rather painful collision with the pavement of Delling Square.

But the wind was rushing by her, and pain had vanished in under the tender ministrations of velocity. Wings would only have caged it, and for once Fujin didn't want control. The world had melted into blue and silver and cloud and wind and everything that she was. Gentle breezes had bred with something greater, an entity beyond Pandemona, a state that made her feel utterly and completely...

Was this what home felt like?

The feeling passed almost before it started, pushed aside by the nagging voice of an overactive frontal lobe. Pandemona wouldn't let her forget long enough to die.

"FLOAT!"

Drifting now, the woman's tresses were once more gently tousled by errant air currents instead of whipped back and abused. The tattered remains of a cerulean tunic settled upon their mistress, and the air below became gelatinous. Tamed.

Home had left her without even allowing the pleasure of definition. Maybe it really had been, then. But it didn't matter, the albino rationalized. Soldiers don't possess homes or loves. They do, however, have responsibilities and skills. These included the salvation of a throng of untested children and her best friend, as well as the ability to inflict the familiar steroid rush of Haste upon herself. Adrenaline and a peculiar sort of high pinpointed the senses.

The mission was clear, and that was all a soldier needed to know. Fujin was to reach Garden and assume command before the enemy general could occupy it. The opposing target was irrelevant. Emotions irrelevant. Life irrelevant. Death irrelevant.

_...just keep moving just keep moving just keep working just keep moving just keep thinking..._

_They never told us about it in GForce 101._

_The best goddamn stat charm of all._

Fujin hit the ground running.

***

They always, always left him.

_Fuck._

Fuck her. Fuck everyone. Fuck a world that didn't believe in happy endings.

_Always leaving. Always._

Unworthy bitch.

The roses were ash, but the breeze had died enough to keep the room clean. his trench coat was still pure white.

"Sir, are you..."

"Shut the fuck up. I want a detail sent to take over command of Galbadia Garden as of yesterday. Allocate as many men as possible. A detachment is to be diverted to hunt that woman down."

"... force, sir?"

"They're soldiers - what the hell do you expect? I don't care to keep reminding you of the obvious. Nobody under twelve dies at Garden, and Raijin Kasim is to be brought to me. I don't give a shit if the older ones resist out of some screwed up loyalty to that bitch - resistance is to be eliminated"

"And... errr... herself, sir?"

"..... Drill Prison. Maximum Security. If she escapes a second time... make it understood that I will not be so lenient."

"Yes sir."

" I fail to see exactly how you could fuck this up with the kind of manpower we have - but if you need me I'll be visiting Miss Heartilly. We need to secure a source of magical power before our operation can continue, and you bitches couldn't cultivate something like this if the idea bit you in the ass."   



	6. the devil you know

**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**IV - the devil you know**   
  


I thought of us, hard to talk these days   
Did we change   
Or were we strangers all along?   
Tell me what caused us to turn away

There's a wall of silence miles across   
A wall between us, holding back   
Holding back our loss

I moved ahead, thinking you'd be there   
But it changed   
And now we're strangers to our past   
How did I lose you along the way?

-- Wall of Silence, _October Project_   


***

Modern language has a way of defiling certain words - cutting them down in their prime for the latest trend or the easiest expression. Take, for example, the ever-so enshrined concept of love. Placed upon a pedestal that all the world might wish for it, it can most everything to a number of people at any given time. And yet those same dreamers cut down their precious concept in the same breath that fuels their fantasies. She 'loves' to eat onions. He 'loves' to play golf. Words become so watered down that they must be distilled for special occasions.

Some people finally find True Love, after years of professing a 'love' for their favorite glass jar.

Fujin Asher had experienced a kindred revelation that evening, when she found in herself the meaning of True Rage.

_He didn't love me. Fine. I was always prepared to deal with that._

Taking out a few guards at the makeshift palace walls had been one of history's simpler atrocities. It wasn't as if Fujin had expected them to be anywhere near the caliber of killer she was used to sparring with - killing them was likely a dishonor in some must code of conduct or other. But their blood on her hands as she vaulted over the edge of a bone-white barricade was nothing but an afterthought of a message from one soldier to another. If you choose to kill, you choose to die. Any kiddie with a sawed-off shotgun or the Shiva they found in mommy's garden can off their neighbor, but it is the true professional that prepares to dodge the consequences.

_But to try and use me, after everything we've done together..._

Damn it felt good to cause something pain.

_Fucking bastard._

A bullet nearly fired before she sheared off an errant hand at the wrist with a well placed toss of the shruiken. Amateurs. Thank Hyne for the idiocy of compulsory military drafts... They'd soon poured into the city by handfuls, tromping with the inverse of stealth out of the compound at their strangely beloved Seifer's bequest.

_The bastard formerly known as **my** strangely..._

_Shit, Fujin. Get some control over yourself._

Six men at five o'clock, and the harsh purr of motors from nine. Two alleys - two exits- both blocked. Visibility minimal on a night quickly becoming more clouded than anticipated, with no lights on residential back streets. The crouched killer, slightly-built frame beginning to feel a bit the worse for wear as her hands met parched pavement, had no idea how far away they were.

Never did. Distorted Depth Perception due to Non-Congenital Defect. Far too many ineffectual proddings by Kadowaki to forget that - as if an exam was going to resurrect her eye from the great beyond.

_Defective. That's a good one._

They thought that they had her trapped like an animal, yelling their asses off in some pansy parody of the highly overrated macho battle cry. The sound was enough to make her cringe at their lack of restraint, ricocheting off of moss-covered walls.

Their flashlights blinded her, dread illumination piercing the comfort of dark. Eyes of the more beta section of the wolfpack searching her out. And indeed she must be a sight for predator's eyes - cyan tunic half shredded off and hair gone to hell in the maelstrom.

The soldier had no time for this.

"PANDEMONA."

_Hello, old friend._

And if she knew Pandemona it was getting antsy anyways, feeding off the added adrenaline in her system. Doesn't do to leave a mad dog to starve.

_Will you take my memories as ransom?_

It's Presence filled a space of greater weight than air, a place beyond whatever substance her mind had conjured to grant inform. The Presence was hungry.

_Won't you this time - just this once?_

"KILL."

Blackness. Darkness. Fujin's faculties were suspended for the good of a decidedly symbiotic parasite. Sensory deprivation was a comforting horror as Pandemona leeched something away that the petite woman didn't care to name.

Probably couldn't label if she tried.

And suddenly the world was all greyed hues again, flashlights pulled into what Pandemona might consider a maw. Fujin had never actually seen her guardian in action, but it was comforting to think of it as a devourer. Best goddamn security blanket in the world. And a very considerate virus, given the scratched equipment it had left behind in a shadow-blighted corner.

The motorcycle was the usual half-assed and undermaintained military standard, but it would do. Soldiers made do with the resources they are given - end of story. It was her own damn fault for falling in love with a fantasy just like that prick who appeared to be Seifer had.

Fujin revved the motor, utilizing skills that had gone unpracticed since a vehicles class that seemed half a world away. The vibrations traveled up an arm invaded by goosebumps, the system shock of physical sensation a very needed distraction. Pandemona was joyous, and when it returned with that peculiar tingling feeling... so was the soldier. A strange kind of happy, all sated hunger and whirling rage.

Both could hide their forms behind the impassivity of alabaster brows all they liked. Denying that they would have been overjoyed at being granted the ability to summon a wall of force to raze this place to the ground accomplished nothing. It didn't change the fact that they felt like hurting something.

Hurting someone.

Hurting herself.

Hurting _him_.

***

A Knight needs a Sorceress.

"Rinoa... are you alright?"

To stand at his side. Lend him her power.

And he'd protect her.

"S-Seifer? Why have you locked my in here, I... I.. saw..."

Someone unconditionally loyal.   
  


_Through the night at one hundred miles an hour, a silver arrow streaked through the city streets. It skidding, roaring defiance against the stillness of a newborn night under curfew just as it refused to heed the inherent danger of cobblestone._

_Blurring brick, blurring streetlights, blurring signs of pursuit that couldn't hope to catch enchanted speed. Heading strait for the one thing left that the one who'd tamed velocity could trust._

_Her wounds couldn't have been a more welcome distraction._

_Blood wended its way down her shoulders, overtaking the dried remains of that which had tried the path before it._   
  


"Shhhh... it's alright. You're going to be fine here. I'm sorry I had to do this to you - I didn't want you getting hurt out there."

Who'd profess to loving him.

"I-I just..."

Who'd never leave him. Ever. Tied to her protector.

Dependent.

"It's alright. I'm here now. I'm not going to hurt you. Don't tell me you've forgotten what we had already, Rinoa."

A Knight _needs_ a Sorceress.

She'd said she loved him, but he hadn't wanted her.

Foolish. He needed her.

"R-really? But what about everything that's happened. I don't understand what's happening. Are they all alright?"   
  


_The army couldn't - nay, wouldn't - move faster than she did. Dark, thick pines lined the roadway and the bullets at her flank had given way to the purr of a combustion engine. A rush of crisp night air wiped any trace of lit gasoline's stench away._

_They'd have to get their equipment out here and circle the garden first._

_Frozen lips almost grinned, and their owner gave herself over to the acceleration with reckless abandon. They'd be too late. Raijin and the Garden would be alright if this dark ride killed her. She'd given up too much to a fantasy of a lover already._

_Fucking bastard._

_Arching her back to rage against the moon, Fujin cursed his name to the heavens. If she didn't hate him, anger and blood loss did well enough to convince her so._   


A Dream needs a Sorceress.

"One I was not longer tied to Edea I took control. It was unfortunate, but your father was killed by ... fringe elements."

And a Knight should be prepared to sacrifice everything.

"Oh, Hyne..."

He could love a Sorceress. Eventually. He was supposed to love a Sorceress.

"Shhhh... don't cry. I'll protect you. Didn't I always tell you that when we were running around the countryside with your fighters? I'll _always_ protect you."

A Knight needs a Sorceress. A Dream needs a Sorceress. And the Knight would have his Sorceress.

He'd love her.

"Oh, Seifer...please just hold me... "

Eventually.

"Always."

Then everything would be fine.   
  


_It stood out like a volcano on the horizon - hard edges and angles where foliage should have been. Might have been mistaken for a shrone in the old days, when people put more effort into things that were less usefu/._

_ Pulling up to the dimly-lit scarlet monolith, Fujin stormed her way past the surprised-looking night guard to tension-draining release._

_The commander was in._

_Galbadia Garden only thing she had that wasn't his already. Seifer Almasy had taken her pride, her dignity, a heart two sizes too small, every good memory the soldier had of the last six years.. and ground them under the heels of those black leather boots._

_Goddamn user - just like the rest of the world. Out to take advantage of the orphan - make her think she's family and cast her to the streets. Adoption was the ultimate con, really._

_This was the one thing that was hers, and it was going to stay that way._

_"RAIJIN! WHERE?"_

_A passing student gaped under the glow of artificial light, looking a terrified askance at her state of bleeding undress._

_"Your office, Commander..."_

_The Commander couldn't care less. This place had walls of steel and flight capacity. From a strategic standpoint, things were going to be just fine._

***

Parents and guardians, the vaunted primary caregivers, all give children the same line when they're young. Stating with righteous certainty and more that a little vicarious fulfillment that little Jimmy can be whatever he wants to be if he really, _really_ tries.

It's no wonder that they usually break out the fairy-tales after that.

Alexander the Great, Professor Odine, Hyne herself- every single one was born with something special that nobody else could quite emulate. Incompetents cannot be president, and drug abusers don't magically metamorphosis into healthy adults. Nay, when one is older they feed you another line right after they kill off Santa Clause.

Some people are born to things like genius and sorcery and charisma and the flow of recorded history. And some people just aren't.

That Raijin Kasim had never been enlightened as to this second principle was quite obvious, given the rather uncomfortable predicament he had currently backed himself into. Luckily, as he nursed his indecision as to whether to ask his former victims-by-association for help, his more centered friend happened to burst into the room. Had she not been covered in bleeding scratches, the fighter might have been overjoyed at her return. He also might have feared for the fate of his shins when she noticed the two young men slumped in the back of the room.

Thank Hyne for mixed blessings.

"Fuuj.. what happened? Are ya ok? D'ya want me to..." oh, man. Fuuj looked wrecked. All bloody and kinda... well.. indecent. Maybe if he grabbed her a coat or something she's be less likely to...

"HALLWAY. NOW."

Oooh-kay. So she was in one of those moods. Poor Fuuj.

It was in the fighter's best interests to be ushered into the fluorescent hallway.

It was a bit of a surprise when Fuuj, looking all suspicious at the office, put her hands on his shoulders instead of striking him in the calves. Not that he was complaining, but it _was_ actually kinda scary. If she wasn't trying to kick him, something _really_ must have messed her up.

"TRAITOR?"

Awww...geeeze. She looked like she was gonna cry or kill someone or something. Well, for Fuuj anyways - and he knew Fuuj better than anyone. His friend_ never _cried. And now Raijin was feeling all bad and..

"Nonono... don't worry about that, ya know. I heard about the soldier people comin' over the police radio an' thought they might be Carroway's. I thought maybe, ya know, since you weren't here... " the bronzed lunk babbled in a desperate pretense of normality. And minute now she'd get more pissed about the fairy-boys and..

"Thank Hyne."

Hug him?

What the hell?

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...

"What d'ya mean? Did something happen to Seif?" now seemed like as good a time as any to panic, though he hoped the tiny pal wasn't noticing through the great big bear hug he was giving her.

"You could say that, " Fujin growled into his shoulder.

"Fuck, Fuuj... he isn't..."

Oh crap oh crap oh crap...

"He's gone, Raijin. Just like we thought. Gone like our Seifer was never there at all," Fujin ventured to crack a rare, weak smile, " Maybe ours was never there at all."

Oh Hyne - they'd talked about this. Analyzed it to no end. How they might have to leave him , how they might have to hold out for the real Seifer...

But he must have done something to Fuuj to make her crack like this. How could he? He was their friend... their family...

Raijin had never thought it would really come to this. Fujin mulled over a lot of things, even if she didn't say so, and they never happened either.

"Shit, Fuuj.. can we fix this...? He's _Posse_... "

"Save him?" his buddy pushed him away to the captain's mixed relief. Not that the woman really had the strength to push him, but Raijin wasn't exactly in fighting stance at the moment. " Don't you fucking get it - our Seifer doesn't _exist_! Just one more bastard using us. That's all. "

He'd known Seifer for years and now... Damn. They were supposed to have been able to prepare for this and just run off into the sunset. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. The way Fuuj was all banged up it musta been Seif who sent out those soldier people...

Why would he do this?

Raijin had thought he knew the man.

Raijin had thought a lot of things.

" I ... APOLOGY, " the pale, too-thin woman muttered to the floor. Awww.. he knew she never meant it.

He must have looked sad, ya know. Great. The last thing she needed was to be more upset, especially with that scum waiting for them in the next room. Raijin shoulda known ...

But things were gonna work out, if they stuck together. They always did. Fuuj always knew what to do, even if Raijin was beyond lost.

" I know, ya know. We... we were okay alone before. An' we're gonna be okay by ourselves now, " the man attempted to inject his usual cheer into hollow words. But she seemed better, ya know? Seemed back on her feet. At least that was a relief even if Raijin was kinda sad and all. He wasn't gonna be depressed now, though - Fuuj _needed_ him.

"We saw this coming,"

Fujin looked at Raijin.

"We saw this comin',"

Raijin looked at Fujin.

The words weren't what made it feel any better.

"Back to work," the petite storm grabbed the big ol' coat he'd snatched for her on the way out, and turned back to the office door. "For once in your life you may have actually have had a good idea."

The fighter had the feeling that he wasn't going to like this, but there really wasn't anything else to do but go with it. Fuuj knew best.

"Maybe ya should use a cura or something - I think I have one here if ya..""

"NO. SCARS.... REMINDER.

***

"DEAL," the woman wasted no time in dispensing with pleasantries as she stalked into the room, lapsing into her strangely efficient means of communication. Squall wasn't terribly sure why she was injured, nor did he really care, but having suffered such wounds himself he could sympathize the desire to get this exchange over with.

"What do you want?" Squall had seen this coming. Seifer might be unrestrained, but his sidekick had always seemed at least somewhat professional. Besides- a brokered freedom would put Squall one step closer to new orders, and out of this whole chaotic mess.

The icy facade of a soldier served him well here. He might have imagined her giving him a nod of approval. Finally, someone who didn't expect him to break down and cry about his 'issues' ever time they initiated a conversation.

"... HELP."

Ah, the reversal of fortune. Squall and the fool fidgeting beside him were the only people here capable of the committee's caliber of offense, and they both knew it. It was time to be sensible.

"With what?"

If he had to care.

"Seifer wants to take this place down. We're not going to let that happen. I assume that you want that less than I do," she was using full sentences again. Interesting. Facade or lapse? Seifer had a knack for getting good help that belied his unprofessional nature.

"No."

No, the brunette supposed that he didn't. It would be against mission parameters, wouldn't it?

"Good. Two of us will be enough to clear out the reactors and get this place airborne. He can't touch us there."

"And the other two defend the gate?"

"Yes."

"What!?! You can't deal with them? This is hella _wrong_ man, you can't trust them with..." Zell had leapt to his feet, once again trying to show some kind of twitchy martial prowess. Idiot. Of course Squall knew better than that. The iceberg would never understand his ability to concoct an elaborate system of justice and yet fail to see the good parts of an achingly simple mutually beneficial agreement.

Squall didn't feel like dying today. Not at the hands of Seifer Almasy, at least.

"No, we can't. Raijin stays with me. Zell stays with you. And after this all we go free. Deal?" then they could get back to Balamb and normality. Surely the rest of SeeD couldn't be so capricious as his erstwhile compatriots.

"We have no reason to hold you," Fujin vocally shrugged.

"Fuuj - you can't," Raijin, it seemed, was also concerned until Fujin shot his a sharp look. Perhaps something like that would help get Dincht to shut up...

"No. Seifer abandoned us. We move on. There is no time for this."

Abandoned? Interesting as well. That didn't sound like the overblown braggart he knew. If the mercenary had cared about Seifer's motivations that might have been an important clue as to his mindset.

"Take Leonhart and get the turbines running," Fujin commanded her partner before allowing her one eye to fall on Leonhart. Her hands were behind her back - an admirable amount of control. " If he dies, I will personally see you gutted if it is the last thing these students do."

Of course. The lion nodded in assent, somewhat relieved to be once more among people who wanted to be his coworkers, rather than an incomprehensible pack of would-be friends.

Coworkers he _understood_. Squall had no problem with the professional relationship.

"But Fuuj, it's dangerous out there and kinda.."

"I'll take the gate."

"Fuuj, lemme.."

"I'll take the gate. C'mon Dincht"

The aforementioned Dincht was swearing under his breath again. The child of rain wasn't exactly sure what the blonde hoped to accomplish with that, but left it up to the shorter man's discretion. Zell's apparent wish to look like a moron wasn't any of Squall's concern.

"... Whatever."

Pulling himself upward with leather garments sticking slightly to the couch of like material, the mercenary retrieved his gunblade from an oddly silent Raijin. Green eyes scoured the metallic surface, careful to appear nonchalant as they hunted from any blemish which might tarnish the weapon. Finding none, Leonhart relaxed to rest the comforting weight on his shoulder - an action which pushed a tuft of fur to tickle his cheek.

Raijin was experimentally twirling his staff, as expected. Really, such displays were quite unnecessary. There were better things to ponder than the multitude of ways in which they could pointlessly threaten one another.

Escape. Survival. A new mission, and yet the only sort of mission he'd ever taken. And, for some reason he didn't bother to dignify with a definition, Squall felt oddly more relaxed by the situation.

It had been odd, having nothing to do there. Just _sitting_.. had been uncomfortable no mater how much he rationalized discontent away.

Mother Nature, you see, is not a foolish woman. When she decides to craft something, it is what she says it is regardless of what it might have to say about the matter. Who better, after all, to understand the inherent properties of the materials of construction? Raindrops, lakes, ocean, rivers, waterfalls, or the most insignificant puddles of mud - it doesn't really matter. The elements of water share one basic trait which defines them, and she will stand for no deviation. Eventually, the most frigid icecaps must melt to it's true persona. And so though liquid flows and freezes and melts and wears away the ages, it has one rather uncomfortable weakness despite the hope of solidifying state change. In short, water needs a vessel. Something else, something foreign and unyielding, to guide motion and shape that ageless power might be focussed, dissipated, or simply visible.

That such a guide must be dwarfed by the vastness of what it keeps is irrelevant.

In any case, if the stuff of water has no such guidance, it is forced to fall into the closest serviceable container it can find regardless of any opinion it might have on the matter.

Mother Nature brooks no defiance when she has decreed a trait. Not even from the most favored of lions.

***   


They'd stopped taking the clothing now. She looked cute in her new dress - it was a lot like the old dress. But then Sephy had always looked cute. Matron had said so.

The place where they were now wasn't very much like the lighthouse beach. Dirty and cheap, with flickering wrecks of electric lights to stave away the encroaching night. They'd only been able to afford one room - Sephy said that they needed to pretend to be married so the Galbadians wouldn't capture them and kill them. But that was fine. Irvine would have killed to be stuck in a cheap motel room with Selphie Tilmitt a week ago, and there was certainly no reason not to feel the same way now.

_Matron said you were a nice girl._

Irvine knew what do in a situation like this. he'd always been good at it. And Matron would approve.. wouldn't she? Irvine didn't want to be alone anymore.

_Maybe if Sephy remembers .. maybe then. Good people remember, right matron? it's the bad ones, the bad people who took you away - **they** don't remember._

"Do you remember?" the gunman inquired of his companion, who was currently perched on the edge of a not-quite-sanitary looking bed.

_We'll come to see you at the beach when the soldiers stop looking for up. It'll be nicer there. I promise._

"Geeeze, Irvy.. you could try to be a little clearer."

She was cute when she pouted. Most girls were, when they didn't smile like Matron.

"Do you remember where we came from before we were sent off to the Gardens? Do you?" settling himself beside her, the cowboy followed instinct and experience to place an arm about her shoulder. Girl did what he asked when he looked at them like that, and he wanted her to remember. So did Matron.

_"I don't wanna go away to Garden alone, matron."_

_"There's no more room at Balamb and Trabia. I'm very sorry, Irvy. You're a nice boy, you'll make new friends - don't worry. "_

_And she smiled at him._

"We? As in together? That's kinda wishful thinking, Irv.. and those wicked gf power things sorta messed with the old memory a bit. I was prolly in an orphanage somewhere. D'you? Remember that is? Was it cool?" she smiled. Not like Matron, though. Never like Matron.

".. I remember you." Irvine bent to whisper in her ear, gliding his hands around her waist.

"Dude, what are you..."

Sephy squirmed a little in response, but she didn't seem too upset. He thought he caught her giggling a bit.

"We were all there. Quisty and Squall and Seif and Zelly... and you. You were my best friend. I wish you would remember. It's.. it's wonderful to have a family. "

She looked like she was thinking, leaning back into his shoulder. Maybe...

"We.. we grew up in the same place?" Sephy puzzled.

"Don't you remember? Please, please you have to try.. on the beach? And we'd play cops and robbers, and bury matron in the sand.."

"I... wow. I kinda.. sorta... That is so coool! I guess maybe I might remember a bit..."

_Yes!_

"Please try.. please. I remember having a family. I ... I don't want to be alone anymore..."

Irvine gathered her up, already knowing what his next move would be. He'd done this before, but he'd still been alone _then_. This time things were going to go right.

She didn't make for much of a weight in his arms.

"Irvy...?"

"You do remember, " Irvine grinned into her neck, pulling her closer. "You were always a cute kid. But.. you're cuter now."

"Really? " Sephy was smirking a little herself.

"Really," purred the assassin.

"Since I left Trabia I.. I don't wanna be alone either."

Good.

_See Matron? I **told** you. Aren't you proud?_

When he started kissing the girl's jawline, she didn't protest.

***

There are amenities that one expects a decent boarding school to have.

A dorm. A cafeteria. Classrooms. Likely the odd auditorium or gymnasium facility.

Mecha armor docking bays and flight capacity usually weren't part of the program, but Fujin wasn't complaining. Whoever said that Galbadia Garden was a school anyways? A few malformed freaks of financial pimp backers? A man without the balls to call the kettle black? Or maybe the general public that didn't want to be so crass as to categorize it sanctuary or poorhouse.

What Galbadia really was happened to be a fortress, because Fujin _said _it was a fortress. And damned if that wasn't a good thing right about now.

"GF classes to the observation decks. We need to keep their vehicles away from the entrance. Nobody - and I mean _nobody_ - is using fire spells. Bastard will burn us alive if he's out there, " having pulled on Martine's heavy black cloak to mask her state of undress, Fujin shouted with an eerie calm to a somewhat panicked group of would-be killers.

"You! The SeeD trainees," a skeptical glare was met with murmurs of discontent form the left. If they'd needed a cheerleader then fate would somehow have transformed that Tilmitt brat here. A school would have merited Quistis Trepe, and Fujin had the feeling that the leadership of one Rinoa Heartilly would have produced a cute little smoking wreck.

But they were stuck with a soldier, and that was that.

Fujin liked to stay to what she knew.

"Get to the gate - defensive firing line under Upperclassman Variev. And for Hyne's sake - if you see anyone injured take them to the infirmary, " classroom rivalries were all too familiar, and far more deadly than they should be at Garden. But right now they needed more than a cocoon of Estharian high technology to protect them - the students of Galbadia Garden needed manpower.

Eye narrowing, Fujin checked the impulse to pull her hands from the customary position behind her back and reach for her cell phone. Raijin... could take care of himself. Really. He could. The pale commander just wanted to kick something before indulging in the tiresome chore of baby-sitting a few hundred kids through their first bloodletting. The inevitable trouble makers weren't worth the time it would take to put them down.

Deceptively still, Fujin waited in the upraised center, counting down the seconds as conditioned air echoed past.

Three.

Two.

One.

A large group of upperclassmen were just.. _looking_ at her, black uniforms forming a clot in the cavernous steel atrium before her eyes. What did they want? Instructions on how to operate a gun?

Situations like this - in addition to the presence of a man who shall remain nameless - were why she'd never bothered to train for command.

***

"WANT?"

"Yo, C'mmander.. We wanna know why we shouldn't jus' give up ta this Seifer dude you've been hyping up the ass and.. gee.. I donno..maybe _not_ die," the inevitable murmur of agreement from the less bold followed, as a sallow looking youth attempted to invade Fujin's personal space.

People just don't touch the wind. The sylph is adverse to it, and this opposed to maintaining their continued health. And Fujin, as elemental arbiter, had not been having the sort of day which was conducive to calm. Fujin was running on adrenaline, a newfound grudge, and half a cup of coffee...

Zell had been pulled in by the Disciplinary Committee - for _totally_ bogus reasons, of course - enough times to recognize when it was Not a Good Time To Piss Fujin Off. Hell, he'd been in charge of the dorm-wide alert. So he pretty much knew that it sucked to be that dude. And his approach was actually pretty crappy anyways, stupid hotheaded Galbadian punk...

"RAGE!"

With a quick blow to the knees, Fujin rendered the youth a moaning heap of pain without bothering to watch him slide across the metallic floor behind her. Shit - that was sooo... well... _evil, _despite the kid's whole suckage issue. Poor kid. No wonder butch-girl over there spent all her time hanging around with Seifer "Helluva Bastard" Almasy.

But hell - if they were as pissed off at Seifer as Zell figured mostly everyone should rightfully be - then things could potentially be good. And he kinda sorta saw where she was coming from, the martial artist currently to do some beating of stuff himself 'cause of the totally boneheaded move ol' Squall had made. But at least he had the decency not to thwap around little kids.

It was convenient to disregard that he was the same age as the guy.

What was a guy to do when his sorta friend and fearless leader made a Pact with the Spawn of the Devil? Maybe the poor guy had hit his head or something when he was out killing that Sorceress chick

No, no wait. Scratch that. Once Squall was not longer trapped in some kinda wacky Estharian boiler room with Raijin -_ then_ Zell would be good. Good thing he was here to watch his pal's back an' keep that freak Fujin from pulling something dirty. If Raijin tried anything on the talented Mr.Leonhart , Zell was gonna give psychobitch over there a reeealy good ass kicking.

"Anyone else here have a problem?"

..Maybe.

The whites of the student's eyes indicated their negative.

"We were sent here against our will. Every last one of us. We were sent here, and we were unwanted, and we were used, and we made the best of things. This is my chance to break the fuck free of them, and you can come with me, or spend the rest of your lives whoring for people like Martine. Now you will follow me into just rebellion and support your right to be free citizens despite the forces which oppress you. If you don't, I will personally_ rip you into bloody shreds and force-feed you the pieces _for your stupidity. Is that clear? "

Geeeeze - no wonder Raijin was scared of her. Holy _spaz_. At least when Seifer was around she hadn't looked all like she was about to go an a killing spree. Was that speech thing supposed to be motivational? She was bein' , like, Ma on _crack_ or something. This whole thing was hella weird - what was Squall _thinking_? Not that he didn't know best, but these people were psychotic.

On the other hand, at least Zell was out of the brig. Even if all he got to do was bounce around behind General Fuu the Crazy.

"Good. Man positions. Nobody gets in, and all forces retreat back into Garden on my mark."

Action. Cool.

***

With more than a measure of calm the girl relaxed into the hold of her still melancholy lover. The fading humidity seemed almost tawdry, but Selphie Tilmitt of all people should know how to diffuse an uncomfortable silence.

To hell with stained and twisted sheets, forget the traditional one night stand.

The future is _so_ way more important than a few flashes of memory.

"Shhh... it's alright," still perhaps a bit attuned to touch, slender fingers drifted over the nape of his neck. He should be happy. Poor Irv, all alone...

"It is?" Irvine rumbled languorously against her, still prone himself on the cheap motel mattress. It really didn't feel cheap, though, At least not to Selphie. To a sweat-soaked and newly experienced body, it didn't really matter at all.

And she was used to roughing it. Making do was cool with her. At least she'd managed to bag a guy as cute as Irvine.. right?

Best friends? Whatever. It wasn't like she could remember. But he'd seemed so lost and sweet and confused - it probably _was_ real to him.

"We both know now... everything's cool, right?" the spellcaster murmured, breath caressing his earlobe before reaching it's destination.

It had been fun. She wasn't gonna regret this.

The mercenary wasn't quite sure why she'd given in to his need. But it was cool. No looking back - always eyes forward to the future. That train-ride was never going to just suddenly turn back. Why dwell? Why worry about it? It had just been a .. thing she'd done. Because they were probably going to die in this place soon enough anyways and Irvine was pretty cute and she hadn't seen a reason not to and.. things had just gone a little farther than she'd meant them to. Just a little farther. Nothing to worry about. No big deal.

The future is happy. It doesn't exist, so it has to be good.

"... Right," Irvine smiled down at her, eyes still the tiniest bit hazed. His smile had always been kind of sexy - lazy and devouring at the same time. The very definition of the shit-eating grin, tempered with a subtle self-confidence.

His skin was rough where he pressed against her.

She wasn't regretting this. She wasn't.

Reality-check, Selph - time to move back to the planet of the living. Playboy over there was a one-shot deal. You're not a stupid girl, Selph, so don'tcha _dare_ dwell on this. People like the happy, the positive, the silver lining. You don't want to lose his friendship, do you? You can't afford to have the others dislike you...

Happy. You're a happy girl. Just like the lights outside all a-shining. Yellow and cheery against the darkness - that's the perfect metaphor for you, Selph.

And it hadn't been.. _bad_, right?

At least now she had a frame of reference.

Right?

Right.

"Now we can just find Squall after we get some rest and, like, ask him.."

"Can't, " did he just chirp?

"Whaddya mean?" Tilmitt was better at it.

"I killed him," the man smiled down, still entwined with her, with all the proud assurance of a small child who'd just tied his shoelaces for the very first time.

Snuggling into her arms, the green-eyed weight that was Irvine drifted into slumber guarded by her presence from whatever memories stalked his dreams. Safe and protected and in a world that somehow made just a little bit of sense again. It was no wonder that he lost consciousness so soon.

A matching set of eyes, smaller and more almond shaped, stood their ground. Scanning the ceiling. Scanning the walls. Growing ever more accustomed to the limited blue grays of night, and gaining back her sight. They tried to do a lot of things, most of which involved attempting to ignore the warmth that crept through their host from the form which weighted them to the spot. A desperate mission accepted - that resolve not to bolt. To lie stone-stiff and think this through while they both lay on the brink of disaster. Patent denial of the soreness between her legs.

Shock, perhaps? Perhaps. More like the machinations of a mind more impressive than it let on.

The siren call to slumber could not hope to tempt Selphie Tilmitt that night.

For once in her life, the future could take it's merry time.

***

"NOW!"

The smell of smoke had managed to entangle itself with the groggy purr of steel turbines. They gave parkland an undeserved industrial feel before fire was extinguished in a gust of wind and an entirely unexpected entity emerged. To those dwarfed by bouts of steam and the conflict of elements, that is. Scrambling into the now only partially scarlet complex, dead bodies, shocked soldiers, and the ruined earth were left in their wake. Metal had begun to migrate past the horizon, and the vacuum left behind was deadly to more than the surrounding vegetation.

They weren't shocked by much in these parts - especially given the current events. But the surrounding forces could hardly be faulted for suddenly halting in their assault as a metallic halo began to form around the shuddering building. Rings of saturn in burnished gold were bearing it away in an act of the god technology whose like had never been seen in all the nation.

A cloud of steel the size of a good few city blocks had taken into it's mind to blot out the moon itself with a shock of silver and amber.

Galbadia Garden had taken to the heavens.

***

The shards were everywhere. Ashen remains of roses rent by broken glass to match once ethereal hangings. Their destroyers were reflected in the embers of a dining table, the only stars that would show themselves this night. A parting gift, perhaps - the force of her impact should have sent the outwards to plague the world. Science dictated that what should have been the Knight's inner sanctum would not be violated.

But the wind... the wind had broken more than the laws of physics this evening. Things seemed to take a turn for the unworkable - the impossible - around her.

Impossible. Fuck.

She was posse. She wasn't supposed to leave him. He'd thought she'd be the only one to never, ever...

"That _bitch_!"

His body kept meandering back to this badly-lit, wind-scarred tomb which was oddly enough the only part of the palace open to the sky. Fresh air, wending it's way down to cleanse his lungs of burning ash.

Fuck it.

Silicon met it's death under polished leather boots. Ill used, like the general situation, but still serviceable enough to consign the stars to dust in the darkness. Seifer didn't know if _she_ had summoned whatever had decided to block out the heavens. Couldn't know. Couldn't care less. Couldn't leave the last throes of the inferno which had died in the still air, or the motes of dust he half-expected to come drifting up again. He could command here as well as anywhere else, sun-kissed features further illuminated by the decay of flame.

"We can't get through, sir. There's no way we can land a strike force that high up without a Garden of our own."

When he turned to acknowledge the man, Seifer cast the inevitable shadow - the room's only illumination whatever form of artificial sun could be found dissipating behind him. A silhouette to scare the kiddies, in some fucking drama or other. The big, bad, sinister wolf creating the darkness by creating the inferno light.

Remember, children, don't judge a book by it's cover.

Remember, children, this wolf looked the part enough to take the lion's crown.

And the friendliest of breezes can be a maelstrom in disguise, waiting just behind to ravage the path ahead.

"I've heard enough.... destroy Trabia. We don't need that scrapyard falling into her hands too. ICBMs - I want it _annihilated_," Seifer commanded, pausing to take another turn around the welt which gave him light. The Knight didn't bother to look at the man whom he was addressing, didn't want to see the open doorway. Didn't need to. The shadows dancing across the room at his behest were more entertaining fare that any uniformly ugly-assed soldier.

"Aye, sir. Commander Fujin," saluting, his subordinate seemed eager to get the hell out of the place.

"Asher," burning blue eyes - a contradiction of the limpid pools they should have been, glared bullets across the ruins. Their possessor was either unaware of or enjoying the overwhelming scent of smoke.

"What?"

"Call her Asher, scumfuck. Opposition to the dream does not deserve respect. She is Asher, nothing more. A perpetrator of treason, the fucking poisoned apple... and she is _going_ to be taken down. " What the fuck was so unclear about that? These people were like children. Which was why they needed him - but still. They were goddamn _soldiers_. A Knight shouldn't need to be a fucking babysitter. What he needed were real fighter, what he needed was...

"Get me Cid Kramer. Trabia will make enough of an example for that ball-less femme to see reason.

"Of course, sir. The outward branches of the military appear to be in concurrence with your leadership, and have taken martial control of the rest of Galbadia. May I congratulation on the appeal you gave to them, sir? " scumfuck kissed his ass unskillfully.

Things weren't going completely as planned tonight. Time for a new stratagem - who was a Knight to yield to such an unworthy foe? Should the messiah capitulate to his own personal Judas?

Six years of so-called friendship seared to ash and bottled away in a room with a view. Good riddance.

".. yes, sir."

Swiftly quashing any remnants of his element in the chamber, Seifer exited with a few almost unnaturally quick steps. Charcoal's perfume still clung to a weary frame, but his senses were dulled to that particular reminder of things left undone.

"Lock this place up," the Knight, once more composed, called to the orderly he knew would be scrounging pathetically at his heels. "Have it bolted."

"Sir."

The marble tiles which echoed upon his leaving were dirtied by whirling remnants of the combustible. Hangings a matching drabness - robbed of their purity by exposure to the elements and a dozen trained soldiers. The Mistress had always been able to keep them beautiful. Things enchanted and ethereal, rather than a pale imitation of halloween ghosts.

Inertia is unnatural, and thus quite obviously the domain of the Sorceress.

"And throw away the fucking key."


	7. refugee

**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
**VII - refugee**   
  


You know, every day I get out of bed and drag myself to the next cup of coffee. I take a sip and the caffeine kicks in. I can focus my eyes again. My brain starts to order the day. I'm up, I'm alive. I'm ready to rock. But the time is coming when I wake up and decide that I'm not getting out of bed. Not for coffee, or food or sex. If it comes to me, fine. If it won't, fine. No more expectations. The longer I live, the less I know. I should know more. I should know the coffee's killing me. You're suspicious of your suspicions? I'm jealous. I'm so jealous. You still have the heart to have doubts. Me? ... I got to do this. This is my job. This is the deal. This is the law. This is my day. I have no doubts or suspicions about it. Heart has nothing to do with it anymore. It's all in the caffeine.

-- Homicide: Life on the Streets   
  
  


***

The next morning, Fujin was back in control. Back at the top. Back in the game. Ready for the proverbial action. In full-blown defensive combat posture under the camouflage of ambient irrelevancies, muzzling a silent heart.

She was good at silence.

Not the normal, ordinary, everyday silence of the garden at dawn. Never that. For such a creature wasn't really silence at all, but the parasitic whisper of white noise masquerading as quiet. Lulling one's senses to sleep with the promise of inactivity, and seducing the listener into the illusion of an absence of noise. Nay, Fujin's sort of silence was the ostentatious kind. The kind that really said something - a break from words to get the point across the day's cacophony.

Of course, the fighter didn't think of it that way.

Excess words were pointless. Unprofessional.

Just like...

Unsuitable. Emotional. Scars over pale flesh burning, scalding still like half-cooled embers. A deep enough pain to torture, shallow and constant enough to ignore. An itch, a passion, an anger, a loss - searing nerve endings with the greatest of care to travel up her spine and to a section of the nervous system she's thought exorcised long ago.

Weak.

_Her_ fault?

No more. She might have one eye, but Fujin wasn't blind enough to keep down that particularly self-destructive path anymore.

Screw Seifer Almasy.

It was a nice though, the sort of thought that one savors past it's prime just for the memories of how wonderful it was when it was new. Of course, she'd been running those particular words through her head for a good while, now... but this was a different kind of game entirely. Almost appropriate, that one solution should burn in hell with another. This was the real Seifer - hers had been some kind of weak, unprofessional construct born of a few too many furtive nights holed up with romance novels. And this was a real course of action, something befitting a soldier. Not just some half-assed dream.

Screw dreams too.

It didn't take long to wrestle herself out of a once immaculate armchair - posh upholstery flush with unprecedented use.

It didn't take long to struggle on a pair of well-worn boots, and the great sable coat of office.

She didn't bother to look in the mirror.

With a quick swig of stale water left on Martine's no-longer desk, Fujin silently thanked Hyne for the former Headmaster's impressive stash of painkillers. It's always the perfect ones that turn out to be druggies or neurotics or whores. But no matter - good old self-medication had come to save the day. The last thing the soldier needed now was to blow her image by having to requisition something to dull war's love-bites. And they needed her to be beyond that, _she_ needed herself to be beyond that....

Idiocy. Soldiers shouldn't have to think about image.

The albino turned, opening her door unto the harsh light of pre-dawn fourescent security beams.

_Hers._

This place would survive if it killed her and every other goddamn orphan in it. Bright red paint and incomprehensible engines, the greatest fortification in the world, and a group disenfranchised enough to give Seifer what he was looking for. Oh, how they would have lusted for him - something to burn away the numbness bred into them. A man to be their hero, be everything they dreamed of, with the shit to make them just that tiny bit less resigned that would lead to full-fledged revolution. He knew how to do that - to make people feel things that they'd lost, for causes they never should have found. Charis-fucking-matic. She knew that feeling better than her own skin.

Bah.

Individual scratches merged, blotting themselves into a sort of throbbing blanket pain. Probably the asprin. Weak enough for her to walk out smiling. Well, smiling for Fujin, that is. A half-second's flash of upturned lips carefully timed to miss any oncoming observers.

_Hers. _His perfect toy. Charisma falls to the soldier, just like any mundane enemy.

If she did say so herself, it was the greatest Fuck You of modern times.

Now to fight fire with fire.

***

Fuck her.

Not literally, of course. That had been proven beneath him. But Seifer was a man of understanding, superior education, and a connoisseur's appreciation of the benefits inherent in good old fashioned revenge.

Rinoa was hotter anyway. Rinoa loved him. Rinoa knew how to appreciate him. And Rinoa wasn't a one-eyed psychotic.

"Rinoa."

All in all, most definitely better sorceress material. If Edea had wanted Fujin, she would have picked the cripple freak.

"Seifer?" he'd strolled into her room as he usually entered most any chamber - with a mission. And when the girl greeted him he could see her fear without bothering to look. But with her it was something different than terror or resignation or soldierly stolidness. Frailty. Something that Bitch would never, ever possess.

Knightly Honor Entails the Protection of the Frail.

"Rinoa... would you like me to show you around the palace? I have something to ask of you, but I can understand if you don't feel up to going out," Seifer smiled down at his Sorceress - his fate-born angel. So lost looking without the nearest honorless pansy to cling to like a limpet. Almost lost in the sumptuous confection of a room that he had placed her in, and looking about desperately for the wrong kind of man to save her.

Misguided little girl. She needed someone like him.

"No.. that's alright, thank you. My father and I were never close. I'd like to walk around a bit, " the smile she gave was borne of tear-reddened cheeks. The knight didn't have to be a genius to figure out that she was lying - a sorceress is too virtuous for deception. But damned if he was going to rehash the death of that bitch Squall. Good riddance. And her father.... she wouldn't understand. Better to spare her feelings.

"You were lucky to have one," the sun blinded a more ambitious fire for a moment, glinting through large bay windows. The place really was nice, in a girly sort of way - decked out in the blues and greens that Delling has passionately advocated in defiance of his nation's native red. A sorceress shouldn't have to see red. To stoop to lingering with such mundane substances as the blood of the world would be undignified. And Rinoa Heartilly had dragged him one too many times to embarrassingly femme outdoor Timber cafes for him not to know how much she loved the sun.

"Was I? That man was no father at all," fuck... she didn't need to explain, looking all forlorn like that. Shit - it wasn't as if they were strangers. Daddy dearest was certainly no mystery, Seifer having heard this speech a few thousand times more than once..

The power of his mistress would temper that.

" Why am I still here Seifer?" still clothed in that ratty blue slip thing, she gestured for him to settle on the cream afghan beside her. It was a feather bed - excellent quality. The knight saw no reason not to comply.

"Hmm?" an blonde eyebrow raised of it's own accord.

Heartilly was staring at the floor.

"Do you... do you still care for... is that why... "

"Of course I do! That hasn't changed, Rinoa. I know our breakup was rough, but.... we never hated each other, did we? I hope you understand that I'm just trying to protect you. I don't feel right about this everything that's happened after Edea passed on, but there was nothing else to do, I hope you... "

Without a Sorceress to guide him he'd been on his own, bereft of proper instruction. But Rinoa would help with that. He could already tell - had always been able to tell - when he'd smiled that certain way and they'd lean towards him. Wanting. Always wanting. At every bar or stakeout or kiddie Garden kegger.

A small portion if his mind pondered the miracle that he had yet to contract some sort of venereal disease. The conscious bit put it down to luck and worthiness, when it bothered with the idea at all.

"What do you mean? Seifer - all you've taken on now that you're not under Edea's control... it's amazing. If you need anyone to talk to..." an alabaster arm slid around his shoulder. He'd _known_ that Rinoa still loved him.

Under Edea's control? Whatever made her happy.

"I wish I could say that my motives were so pure, in staying with you," and finally the two were back in step, playing the same old game. He'd grin at her, she'd laugh at him for teasing. He'd flirt with her the way that always got him what he wanted, and she'd titter right back. Just like old times, when first love had been only love and summer should rightfully last forever.

Or at least he assumed that the last bit had been how she felt. Seifer understood Sorceresses, not women.

"You can tell me, Seifer, " his once and future mistress made eye contact , " We used to be so close. And you've been so kind... "

Well then. This was going to be goddamn easy. How could he have possibly doubted it? Fujin, Almasy now knew, was nothing but some kind of deviant freak.

'Cause after a whole night of mutual moaning and wailing about irrelevant bastards Rinoa'd done it . Managed to resurrect the most searing sort of flame with pent-up treacle to burn.

Sir Seifer Almasy was back in fucking form.

***

Some day your prince will come. That's what they say, in the old wives' tales. Some day your prince will come and sweep you off your feet and carry you away to his shining castle in the sky. One a white horse, maybe, with riches and retainers and a kingdom all his own.

Sephie had never liked fairy stories, having been a tomboy to the core. Her preferences had run to cops and robbers, fire trucks, and rather unorthodox games of full-contact soccer.

Sadly, that wasn't exactly helping.

Bang bang. You're dead. Better luck next time, Squally - the game was really fun. Maybe I'll be cop then!

The walls were closing in on her far more easily than those of a cramped dorm room had managed. She could smell... _them_ on the sheets, and grime cloaked whatever vision of morning placidity might have made itself known through the window. All night she'd been up, and the sun had come as something of a shock given the steadiness of darkness and his breath surrounding her. False wind, and thought of blood cleansing the pavement.

Death had never bothered her, until....

She had to get out of there.

And so, in the dead of morning, one Selphie Timlett crept out of a cheap Delling motel none the worse for wear. None of her beloved explosions, no bill that she hadn't paid out of concern for her one-time lover. No.. nothing. Entirely uncharacteristic of her. Yet going back was out of the question given that he'd...

He'd been a good guy. She didn't want to be alone. It had been fun. She....

What had he _done_? This wasn't like the other death that were on their hands - this was Squall. A different crime. A real crime. ? The others hadn't been crimes, you know. All the soldiers they'd taken out... they was different. This one wasn't the same. Just.. just because. Poor Squall, eyes half closed while the blood ran down his cheeks and whatever tears the poor guy might have stored up under all that attitude...

Not pausing to contemplate the object blocking her way down the sidewalk, Selphie nonchalantly kicked a dismembered head out of the way. Good thing she'd got those chunky boots last midwinter. Washing stuff like that out of her nylons would be majorly gross.

The road ahead was paved with the bodies of dead loyalist soldiers. Seifer's troops took a creepy kind of pride in the mess, and the hordes couldn't be bothered with flesh while they picked keychains out of the gutter. They hadn't taken the boy's clothes, though, out of some strange sense of propriety. So it would be alright just this once to violate the precepts of fashion to pass herself off as one of their traitor brethren. Better that than SEED, in this place. Poor people. They probably knew even less about what was going on than she did, and SEEDS spelled trouble even when their members _weren't_ wanted for assassination.

Greeeeat - no explosions and a hell of a one night stand to think over. Just great.

You can do this, Selph. You're a big girl. You can keep it together. See all those smashed-up cars and fallen trees? The bullet holes dotting unkempt tenements and glass all over the street from would-be windows? You've gotta move past them. Get away from 'em. 'Cause outside this city there's a place where the earth is unmarred.

At least it's wasn't raining.

Corpses had never bothered the summoner, regardless of their specific patron horseman of the apocalypse. Regret put people off, and was certainly not part of the modus operandi. Things would get better. They _would._

Likely the reason that Selphie made no pretense of looking back.   


***

The view, a brunette-maned lion supposed, was pretty. As views go, that is. Though he really wasn't sure what was so special about them in the first place, given that the only real requirement for something to be a view is for one to be high enough in the air to take a nastily fatal fall. A state which Squall had a touch too much experience with.

Still, the salt was calming and steady beat of the ocean more so. Better here than inside, with the buzz of fluorescence or yet another whiny Galbadia student to subdue. The railing was cold enough to leave an impression on leather-clad arms, though hardly a shock to the system. Seagulls wouldn't dare to venture this far out. And it was, in the sun-tipped spire of Galbadia Garden's bridge observation deck, a perfect sort of solitary. Surrounded by the machinations of nature and war, the beast was safe within the confines of understandable and analyzed creatures.

With Squall's luck, Dincht would be out here any minute to ruin the numbing chill which had crept it's way up his nose with some coffee-flavored sludge. Zell always did early morning the same - with far too much caffienated sugar. Or sugared caffiene Or whatever that weird chocolate puff stuff was.

Leaning on steel bars, the mercenary cast his eyes to the ocean. He should be going back to Balamb. He couldn't go back to Balamb. He should be getting orders. He wasn't sure from who. Not dying had been good enough for the past few days, and he wasn't about to get out of the garden in the middle of the Western Ocean, but this was ridiculous...

A paradox, to be sure.

The salt irritated his scar. Forgotten pain seeping into too-pale temples.

Lost in the depths of his own half-closed eyes, the lion almost didn't hear steel meet steel when a pair of boots made it's way toward him.

"Why?"

Fujin. Ah. Squall didn't bother to look back - and her newfound voice was irrelevant. The 'Commander' still didn't make any sense.

Not that anyone ever really did to this particular beast.

"Why what?" the morning breeze swallowed placid words, tousling chestnut bangs in an attempt to hide the rising sun.

"Why stay?"

... he didn't have to answer that.

"Why do you stay?" when she brought herself to his side, hands clasped behind her back in a distinctly military posture, the mercenary bothered to turn his head.

"That's none of your business," her eyes narrowed. Served her right, asking questions like that. He might not know Fujin Asher, but he did know when someone had asked a pointless question. What did the why have to do with anything?

Squall shrugged her away, preferring to return to the faux contemplation of light on water. It _was_ beautiful, but he didn't really care all that much. "Exactly."

"This place is mine."

Apparently hoping for her to go away had been wishing for too much. He'd come back soon, do his job.. what more could she want? The last thing Squall needed was yet another moron trying to be his 'friend' or some idiocy when...

"....Whatever."

This wasn't worth arguing about. At least it wasn't Dincht, right?

"... I'm not a people person."

The albino grated out, just on the fringes of his level of space - meaning, of course, that she was a good three feet away. Stopped the ocean winds just for them, it seemed. Or at least toned them down a bit, calling in whatever bizarre favor the commander had with her namesake.

"...So?"

In a strange way, this was almost reminding the former assassin of that time with Quistis in the 'secret spot' back at Garden. Squall hadn't known what the hell she wanted either. If anything was less comprehensible than men, it was women. Now she was going to ask him for something he couldn't possibly give her, and halfway didn't understand, and then she'd act like Rinoa and get mad at him for 'being insensitive', and Squall would be stuck for the rest of the day apologizing for a ridiculous situation and...

"Lead them."

The sun had passed the horizon, now, and the backs of twin green eyes burned with it's impression. The east - dominion of Seifer Almasy and....

What!?!

"What?" though far from unrestrained, Leonhart was a bit surprised at the tone of his own voice. Vocal cords almost could have passed themselves off as those of that yelpy moron from his dreams. Eyebrows may or may not have arched. Idiot. Now what in Hyne's name was she going on about...

"They'll like you. They always liked you - pissed the hell out of Seifer," now she was leaning beside him, in a gesture that was obviously as uncomfortable for her as it was for him. Or at least the lion thought so.

" Lead them. With me. "

......

Why couldn't they just leave him alone? . He did his job. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing worse. And now the associate of his longtime enemy had the insane notion that he would just up and...

" They hate me, because I'm not here to make them feel all special and inspired. Raijin can't handle it - you know he can't. They'll want to do what you say, and want to keep me from kicking their asses. It would work."

Insane. Right. Not as an idea, but as assumption that he would care enough to do it. Squall Leonhart had worked all of his life to be a mercenary - just as had been outlined from the outset of his memory. Not some kind of bleeding-heart, moronic, gunblade-toting charity.

"...I..."

Perhaps he'd underestimated her. While the mercenary's vocal cords stalled for time the albino didn't appear to be effected.

" You can help me," Fujin backed away, almost.. smiling? "You _will_ help me. Or I'll turn around and drop you off and Seifer will hunt you down like a dog. Choose your poison."

... whatever.

"... I can't."

She should know better.

The sky was clouding over.

"IDIOT."

But the thunder was distinctly unnatural, as wind has very little to do with lightning.

The Commander screaming was a bit more normal, Squall guessed.

If the waves had had anything to lap at, they might have worn down what lay on the palisade. Unfortunately, however, anger is intangible and there was naught that Leonhart could to do staunch an enraged one-eyed stare. And so he took refuge with uncomfortable silence, that most hospitable of friends, until even he took it upon himself to cast the lion out.

"Why?"

He had a right to know. To know what drove her to this, and find something similar. It must be nice, having that kind of a purpose. Understanding things so completely within one context, knowing...

"Why what?"

"Why stay? "

Ah. He might have hit a nerve with that. Just a simple request for information - but it made her all tounge-tied, didn't it? The tables were turned now. Perhaps the mercenary wouldn't have to go through this foolishness again.

And here the green-eyed prodigy had been thinking that she was nothing like him.

"... Because there's no place else to go."

Thunder wore itself down to a a small, almost pathetic remnant of it's former bluster.

Funny, how the truth can be that way in the face of the most glorious of lies.

Squall Leonhart, for all the throngs at his back, had no one. No place to go. None of them did except for the Gardens, and the mercenary had always tread lightly to avoid the fall that would accompany such acknowledgment.

A long way down, that drop. The ocean was somewhere to go. A place to fall and fall forever, without depth or the will to reject. The only knowledge one would need there would be the water in one's own lungs, and the death of sleep. Nothing to figure out, just the all-telling whisper of the tides.

Why did they keep asking him?

"... I'm not trained for this. I _can't_ command you and I never wanted to command anyone and think you should expect..."

What did they hope to get out of it? To use him? Why didn't they just pay him? Wasn't that the point?

"...RAGE."

Suddenly, pushed back over the railing by a much slighter weight, Leonhart was somewhat closer to his unblemished sea.

"Listen - I don't need you to tell me what to do, prettyboy," that was when she grabbed the front of his jacket, warm breath scalding it's way across wind-chilled flesh " I don't give a rat's ass about how badass you want to look. I never liked you , and I don't intend to start liking you now. What I need is for you to get the hell out there and do whatever it is you do that makes people like Dincht want to lick your boots. You need this to be about _you_? Grow up. Get a fucking clue. If you don't stop pouting like a little girl they're gonna mutiny, this Garden's ICBM fodder, and we're all re-incarnated as mumba-chow. And if you can't see past your scar then I suggest you get back to Galbadia and deal with your own kind."

Forcing him away with a staccato little push to the side, the albino made her exit. She didn't sound angry. Words tumbled out in an even rhythm, with sort of volume that one might use to order a cup of coffee. No drive, no passion, no anger - possessed by the devil of rationality.

Focussed, it could cut glass.

Fujin didn't stay to survey the damage.

"Squall! Want some coffee, pal? "

***

It was a pretty room. A nice, airy sort of place.

Seifer had always known what she wanted, even if she didn't.

And Rinoa Heartilly, Daddy's Unofficial Princess, had always craved what she could never have.

Bad boys, killers, and men of the gun. The ones that Daddy would send half a garrison after to prevent such travesties as the holding of her hand. Those darling male accessories that made her a Strong, Independent Woman who Did Not Need Her Father.

"I know it sounds crazy..."

But Seifer wasn't like father.. or Squall.

Poor, poor Squall...

"I don't know what to say, Seifer," it was insane, she knew. As insane as the deaths of two unreachable man within the span of a week, or her own role in an assassination attempt of all things. A serious one, that was. One that... killed.

Rinoa had never wanted to kill. Squall, Daddy, they were supposed to...

But she could. And she would. If she wanted to. She _could._

"Do.. do you remember why you formed the Forest Owls?"

If she wanted to, she could right now. Just like Seifer and Squall and the lot of them. Rinoa Heartilly stood for what was right, and if they thought that she was incapable...

"To free Timber from Galbadia, of course! No one deserves to have their freedom taken away by..."

Seifer had his hands on her shoulder - a soothing gesture. The Knight had held her just like this, in those beautiful little cafes that she'd just known he secretly enjoyed visiting. Because they were so quaint, weren't they? Just the two of them and the sunshine - no daddy, no chains, no unreachable heart. Only a very touchable flame.

"Military force," Seifer finished for her, " Nobody deserves to have anything stolen by that. Listen , Rinoa.. you know my past. You know about the Orphans of the Estharian War. You worked with them. Nobody deserves that..."

_Daddy didn't want me to go. Dearest Daddy - conqueror. I wanted to hurt that man. I wanted to..._

The sheets - the sheets were warm now. As soft as her old ones at home, or the top of the line replacements obtained for the Timber Owl headquarters.

_And now he's dead._

"I still don't understand."

_I was supposed to prove to him - to Squall, to all of them..._

_I couldn't reach Daddy. Gave up on that man years ago. But Squall... I could have reached Squall eventually , in that shell where I just knew a loving, caring person lay. I know I could have. We would have been perfect for each other. I could have saved him, transformed him, and it would have been...._

"War. War ruined our world. War and greed and lust and the death of honor. Think of the old stories - where Hyne would ride the winds with her knight to watch over her children. Her dominion gave the world peace, " the blonde wasn't looking at her, she knew. Wished he would - there was nothing more annoying that not being seen by the people suppose to be paying due attention. Almost kind of rude. But Seifer had a knack for making the uncivil extremely sexy, and underneath it all she knew that he was just a dreamer.

Just like her. Rebels.

_No more dreams about Squall now. Or my father._

_But..._

"Hyne ruled the world, and there were no orphans or bloody deaths," her ex boyfriend was starting again. Same gossamer trenchcoat, same clipped and bleached tresses, same trancelike ramblings. He was so endearing when he got this way, when he was the real Seifer. It was almost enough tomake her grin a bit - jolting well-exercized muscles - though of course he didn't notice.

" No suffering in conflict after conflict after pointless conflict. None of that. Who was there to fight, with only Hyne in control? And if there world were to be under the hand of one just, good government - think about it! There'd be no war. There'd be no death-factory Gardens. There'd be no families broken apart by meaningless, degenerate lust for power. And there'd be no orphans. Don't' you see? The Sorceress' job is to protect the world with the power she has been gifted with, and a Knight's job is to protect her. To make things right. Can't you understand, Rinoa?"

"I..." Rinoa made a successful conquest of eye contact, and he dazzled her with that old shit-eating grin.

_Daddy would hate this. They both would._

"Together, we can do more than the Timber Owls ever could. We can _fix_ it. All of it. If not us, who else?" a leather-clad hand left her right shoulder to grasp an lightly tanned chin. It maneuvered her deeper into his line of sight.

_But they're not here now._

"Seifer, I...." her breath reflected from his skin.

"We can't shirk the duty that we were born for," and the puppetmaster was murmuring now, whispering in a hypnotic sort of seduction. The most valuable, pedigreed of breeds, that. "It wouldn't be right."

But....

_I can save the world. I can. I can make things better. I have to do the right thing._

_They can't control me. I'm strong enough on my own. I'm strong enough for anything._

_I said I'd show them._

"I'll tell you how to do things, what to say... it won't be hard. I'll help you. You'll only have to appear in charge to them. You can be their hero, Rinoa - I'll take care of all the distasteful bloodshed. The people need a leader if they're to survive this world of ours. They need to you make things better. And I know you can do it. "

_This is so... so...._

_Unreal?_

_I loved him...._

_I loved all of them...._

"Be the Sorceress, Rinoa. You're our only hope."

_And this one... this one..._

_I deserve..._

_This one loves me back._

***

The office, he assumed, hadn't been Fujin's long. It was too decorated - the sanctum of an administrator or a leader, not the hell-sent Commander. Besides, the old Disciplinary Room had always been a huge mess.

The albino looked like she had been waiting for him. Having her feet on the desk probably wasn't good for the wood.

"Fine," the lion managed to spit out, almost chagrined at the actions his lack of direction had forced him into. Standing infront of her he felt like a little kid taken to Matron's office to..

Matron?

Who?

... Whatever.

Leonhart wasn't about to let Asher intimidate him.

"Hmmm?" almost a purr, that - a voice once more accustomed to speech made the play almost seamlessly. Now Fujin was just toying with him.

"Fine," surely she wasn't that dense, and Squall wasn't about to rail against his own apathy to the point that her would just blurt it out. Asher of all people should be able to read something into one word.

His shirt really needed to go into the laundry. Was there a laundry here? There must be, given the utilitarian atmosphere given to the...

"Fine."

Good. Now he could go find that washing machine.

"Wait. You didn't answer my question," the wind called after him, voice still carefully modulated. Not that it seemed anything more than natural to the lion when it called him back from the edge twixt frivolous carpeting and impersonal tile.

".. no, I don't suppose I did."

Typical. This always happened. Answers to questions that didn't need to be asked. Squall was surrounded by idiots.

"Well?" but if anyone was is the mood to take blood from a stone, it was his pale counterpart. Fellow Commander. Whatever - titles don't matter.

"Because there's no place else to go," with the ghost of a smile, Squall parroted her own philosophy back.

And lo, the conception of a new breed of silence as per the endless parade of natural evolution. One whose sight was unseen at this moment in a thousand different realties. Not the tortuous gap of the uncomfortable, or the deathly frost between wounded souls. Hardly a variant on the quiet of those who would speak without words, or the judgment of that which may never be heard. Not even the stagnancy known as boredom. Just a plain, meaningless bit of atmosphere. No noise but the fans and voices to wary to come farther down the hallway. Unease had been exorcised along with the need to speak, making it more of a home than a scourge on the emotions.

Because soldiers don't need to talk things to death, do they?

For a few scant moments, they just _were_.

"So where do we run?" the pale Commander bothered to consult, rising from a preparatory sloth.

"... Esthar? " the lion shrugged a bit, seeing no need to shift his position in return. It was a relief to see her sensible enough to nod.

"Sanctuary."   


***

Sephie wasn't there.

She should be there. But she wasn't. She was his friend. She wouldn't leave him.

Why wasn't Sephie there? Matron said that she was a good person, so Matron wouldn't take her away.

... Had they taken Sephie away just like Matron?

They'd pay. Their fault.

Grumbling slightly in the face of what mid afternoon sun broke through dirt-encrusted windows, Irvine Kinneas slowly blinked himself awake. The sheets below him were still damp for the last night's exertions, and the imprint of Sephie's body made itself known when a hand strayed to the other side of the mattress. A few muscles voiced their displeasure - due more to traipsing about the city for half of the day before than anything else. Hyne knew his hair was a nightmare what with this place's disturbing lack of shampoo. Thank goodness he carried that hat around. Irvine wasn't about to let himself be seen in public like this and there was nary a can of hairspray to be found for miles.

It should be warmer. Warmth under the duvet was a given, but it wasn't a .. heavy warmth.

He supposed that he was just used to waking up next to someone.

The knocking at the door wasn't a very nice alarm clock.

"Come in?" the assassin beckoned, attempting to reach for the rifle by the nightstand and preserve his modesty at the same time.

That didn't quite work out when three burly soldiers burt in and kicked him bodily - and butt-naked - out of his nice comfy bed. Lethargy is never conducive to the swift procurement of firearms, and the addition of wind and light threw the gunman out of equilibrium.

Between that and the lack of another warm body - Sephie was his _friend_, and he was the one who always left first - the universe was officially out of joint.

The handcuffs came out a second later. They made him cold too. But the soldiers gave him his coat so he was warmer then.

"We were informed that somebody brought a firearm in here last night," one goateed Galbadian hefted Irvine's rifle, while the other ransacked what little there was in a rusty-hinged closet.

"No uniform, sir. He's not one of us. "

"Right, then. That's an illegal weapon, mate - Knight's orders. You're coming with us."

This morning really wasn't going well.

"And for Hyne's sake put some friggin' pants on!"

He'd have to wait for Matron to give him some sign as to what to do. Sephie would either come back, or he'd save her. And then things would be alright.

But maybe first he'd find his chaps.

***

Tanking up on a peculiar potion of coffee, caramel, and sugar had given Zell a kickass energy rush that morning. And damned if his day wasn't getting better. First that big freak Raijin tell him that Squall's gonna be co-leader or something - thank Hyne, 'cause being dragged around by the balls at the whim of Fujin "Anger Management Problems" Asher was exactly his idea of a good time. The Zell meets Squall in a totally random hallway after tromping around this really way to cold place for like an hour. And _then_ he'd come up with the most ass kicking, action getting, That Bastard Seifer Almasy Screwing-Over completely awesome plan _ever_.

"Squall, man - I heard! Congrats - this is so hella cool! So I'm thinking we turn this baby around and..." Squall was doing that staring off into space thing, which meant that he was trying to ignore Zell. Again. Guess again, baby - you're gonna listen this time.

"No."

See? Zell had seen that coming. Squall hadn't even stopped walking. Kinda bad manners, if you asked Zell, but he knew that his pseudo-friend had issues and stuff.

At least the steel grating on the floors made it easy to jump into Squall's way. With a flourish of arms and requisite enthusiasm, the martial artist made his case.

"But Squaaaall, we could blow Galbadia all to hell! Problems solved! Yeah, baby..." Zell petered off as he was wont to do when saccarine-fuelled thoughts sped ahead of his words.

" No," this time it wasn't just rejection, it was the brushoff. Leonhart calmly pushed his erstwhile companion away.

Yeeesh. What was up with that? Even Squall had to see what had to be done, right? " 'cause it was the right thing to do!

"I don't get you, Squall. That's hella rough. We gotta help those people back there!" Dincht gave it his best angry yell, but his fire had never been the sort that could immolate pure ice. The leather-clad commander didn't even bother to stop. Dismissing Zell from afar, huh? No matter what happened, you could count on ol' Squall not to change one bit.

"We're mercenaries, Zell. Seifer's the one who wants to save the world."

***

Cid Kramer had the best of the best. The most talented students for his garden, and an influentially miracle-working wife. Not to mention enough wealth from mercenary revenues to live out his life in luxury, and quite possibly the most strategically powerful military position in the world. Food, clothing, decor - his surroundings encompassed the height of of Balamb luxury and Estharian upper-middle class. This extended quite logically, of course, to his equipment. Military or otherwise, Cid was taking no unnecessary chances with his charges. 

He was saving them, you see. 

"The proposition, Headmaster Kramer, is very simple. You give me Balamb Garden. I don't fucking blow it into scrap metal."

No matter in any case. As possessor of the best of the best, he had the very sharpest of high-definition telescreen displays over which to converse with terrorists, despots, customers, and former students. 

Never thought he'd have to go for this combination of two out of four. 

"And if I don't like this plan?" the desk was almost twenty years old - a veritable antique, given the rampant property destruction of the Estharian war. Blue sky, blue uniforms, and a man struggling mightily to grant his own eyes the same passivity. The hallmarks of a relatively aged Balamb.

As his unofficial aide de campe, Xu Miyagashima was observant enough to realize that the man was fighting a losing battle. Headmaster Cid had never had any head for realistic lying.

"You don't think I have the balls for it, do you?"

But then, neither had Seifer Almasy. The fresh-pressed white clothing and veiled backdrop to some kind of throne room... please. He had a flair for the dramatic, she'd give him that, but the man would never be SeeD material.

Though he might soon be their commander, she supposed.

"We will not give into terrorist..." seeing a slightly panicked Kramer sweat slightly in the sun's light, Xu took pity upon his rather rotund form a turned up the air conditioning. Calming, it was. The closest feeling one had to a constant here. And it wouldn't do for Cid to make a fool of himself here when it could get out to potential customers. SeeD had a reputation to maintain which didn't include small tubby men in glasses. An public relations dream and it's twin profit margin which went perpetually unnoticed by their leader.

Cid had no head for business either.

"I certainly had enough for you late wife. Guess she needed someone with a fucking spine to be her Knight, hmmm? Someone who knows how to use a sword," Almasy smirked just like always, goading Cid just as much as ever.

"Sir, they're arming several WASP-659s at their primary launch base..." true enough. The readout spread below her fingertips could not possibly lie, with the amount of radar surveillance they paid for. Money well spent, though the outcome of this little charade didn't really matter.

Hmph. The Headmaster seemed quite worked up. Xu supposed, shifting back and for on heeled soles, that she was grateful to him. But he didn't seem to grasp exactly how little anyone here cared about this little transference of power but him. When had it mattered to SeeD before who they were fighting as long as the orphans made enough money to look out for themselves?

The poor man was far too idealistic.

"That was not my wife," myopic vision distorted further by a flushed squint, Cid took to barking at the television. Xu would have to take action.

"Sir!"

Despite her personal feelings concerning Almasy, it was obvious that with Edea's invisible hand gone this place needed a real leader to unite the students. Squall would likely have been more open to healthy capitalist activity while Almasy was liable to lead them off on some half-profitable crusade - but temporary inadequate leadership was better than complete corporate collapse. Xu had a business to run here, and the student body needed to feel inspired if they were to turn any sort of healthy collective profit. For their own good.

"I always had trouble believing she'd marry a pansy fuck like you."

.... she's forgotten how abrasive the man could be.

"This conversation is over."

Cid, of course, was livid.

"Is it? " the Knight drawled.

A flicker catching the corner of her eyes, the aide temporarily turned her attention back to the black and citron display before. The flow of information refusing to co-operate in her calling of his bluff...

No.

NO.

He wouldn't. This couldn't' _be_...

"Sir! Missiles have been launched! Arrival at Trabia garden estimated at thirty seconds..."

"WHAT!?!"

The redness wasn't just for the Knight's amusement anymore.

Shitshitshitshit... she should have expected something like this from someone as unstable as Almasy. Such a waste of resources, that he should stoop to....

"Awwwww... a quarter of your army's gone, Cid," was that sick fuck _laughing_? Targets were one thing - bought and paid for external collateral damage - but to annihilate their own was unthinkable!

" Guess that fucks up your profit margins for this quarter. Balamb. Now."

She could see it now. Material losses in the billion gil range. An entire class of future operatives and kindred souls wiped out in...

_Five._

There was no point in trying to warn them.

_Four._

They probably already knew, if they had someone competent on the sensors.

_Three._

And if they didn't.. ignorance is bliss.

_Two._

A waste. Such a waste. But people die all the time. Nothing to be upset about.

_One._

Balamb could do naught but watch a lime-green sequence destroy themselves. Patterns of light bearing far too much meaning invested within glass. The silicon prophet never lied.

_Zero._

And it was with all the answers pre-calculated, hope mechanically dissected, that the countdown destroyed both northern Garden and it's founder.

And an amber dot disappeared from the readout.

"Yes. Balamb... it's yours. Just don't destroy it. _Please_. "

Edea, those far-off protégés... casualties on his hands. A cross to bear that destroyed a countenance which had strained for pride. It hadn't been hard to figure out what he would say. Creator and destroyer and all-around ignorant Headmaster - so predictable in his old age.

" Don't worry Cid. There'll be more orphans for you to collar before this is over. I guarantee it."

***   


Author's note: *sigh* I suppose I should apologize to all of the Rinoa fans now. I tried to get her at least somewhat IC, but my personal preferences tend to skew the narrative a bit. Honestly, if it weren't absolutely necessary to the story I would have just left well enough alone and had her stay in the hands of those who like her enough to write her well. 

Mwah ^_^. A long time, I know.. it took Mess the better part of a month to get the whole college routine down, which kinda delayed most everything of the fandom persuation she had going on. Hopefully this is still IC - if not consistent with the game, then at least with the characterizations of the BM alteriverse. It's been a long time ^_^. But if t'is that messed up there's always rewrites. 

Not terribly action-packed either. More of a lead-up chapter then anything - an entity kind of inevitable. Always the most annoying to write - events that need to happen for things to make sense, but aren't the really juicy dramatic bits. This, of course, wasn't helped by the fact that I cut two scenes off of the end due to length *grimace* 

Yeah - I know the paralells are getting blatant now. Half the point, dont'cha know ^_^. One of the major themes of the game was Squall as direct opposite/foil to Seifer, and I continue on my quest to not pull AU completely out of my ass. 

And yes, UC, I did spellcheck *grin* 

*is proud of self* 

Ah well. Next chapter is funfun reaction time. Hopefully out before 2001 ^_^; *hides*   
  
  



	8. the best defence

**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
VIII - the best defence   
  


Nobody will ever let you know   
When you ask the reasons why   
They just tell you that you're on your own   
Fill your head all full of lies

The people who have crippled you   
You want to see them burn   
The gates of life have closed on you   
And now there's just no return

- Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, _Cardigans_   


***

Kramer.

It wasn't a terribly illustrious family name. Nothing flashy about it - not like the gaudy fabricated families that his orphans adorned themselves with. Almasy, Leonhart - none of those would fly in the real world. And Cid was about the real world, wasn't he? He was the knight of caution and defense, protection and the salvation of the meek.

He made them strong.

Kramer was a name without anything left. It would not be remembered for the prematurely deceased Edea, who had never taken to it in her present occupation. And though he told her he'd be strong when she was gone, the headmaster knew very well that he couldn't get on without her.

His Beloved.

It sounded stupid now that Kramer was just an old man. He knew that. But he'd been a Knight once.

It had been her dream, this place. Balamb in particular. And in it, he'd had a spark of her beautiful, exotic spirit left. Something to hold on to in the too-clean catwalks and elegant fountains.

But the men who'd come to meet him in the foyer had more than once proved that he would take any bit of Edea that he could off of Cid Kramer's hands.

"You secede full control to me? " Seifer was more dangerous now, and it was not the first time that Kramer would curse himself for not having seen the capacity for destruction in this wayward child sooner. The blonde man commanded now, no longer content with rebellion, and the troops behind him seemed content with his sentiments.

All Kramer had was Xu, and she only managed to look expectant.

"Yes. She... she chose you," and she had, in a way. Even if that wasn't her but some demand from beyond time. She'd chosen him, and he'd had that flaw so common in the tragic hero that they'd been able to complete the plan.

He half-expected it not to work - or maybe that was half-hoped.

But it had. And there was nothing else to be done. So why not? Why not shake those gloved hands and finish with it?

"And why the fuck shouldn't I kill you?" the new Knight, shining and white and everything Kramer had once been in triplicate, was not letting go of the older man's outstretched palm.

"... I want no more of this. I'll leave. I promise you I won't..." Cid trailed off, directing his gaze at the floor tiles she'd picked out. If he was any kind of Knight he'd have ot get out of here and write, tell someone.. tell them what she'd really wanted. Tell them about her sacrifice. They thought she was some sort of villain or...

"Fuck you, old man. Rhetorical question. You're nothing without Edea, and we both know it," quoth the wolf. His soldiers were already fanning out, no doubt to round up the student body.

"Yes...just please, don't hurt any more of her children. "

He was tired, though. He'd been tired long before this, and without her to keep him going...

Nobody would want to remember, anway.

"Well now I won't have to, will I? The traitor fucks in Galbadia don't have anything to do with her."

The blaze spread up the boy's arm, caressing it's way to Kramer's outstretched fingers. They way it crept was fascinating; a far more relaxed pace of consumption than usually characterized the voracious fire.

Head bowed, the former headmaster resigned himself. He'd won.. and he'd failed at the same time. She'd trusted him with the after and he'd failed.

Never had been knight material.

"And neither do you."

But he'd done it... right? This was supposed to be the end of things. He wasn't supposed to have to keep fighting, not when he'd saved the world.

He had.

_Really._

Hadn't he?

Anguish forces thoughts to fade to black, or some more primal frequency.

***

Thinking about _him _was like cutting out an ingrown nail. You knew you had to do it. You knew it wouldn't be pretty. And you knew with utter and complete certainty that it was going to hurt like hell.

Up on the screen.. she'd expected it. Thousands of miles between the, and it felt like he was the only man in the world. Fucking bastard with his throng of followers in the central square, ready to throw the dogs a bone. Oh, not anything ugly like the poor kids at Trabia. Noooo. He wouldn't owe up to things like a real soldier would - he'd gloss it over and make it shiny like a good knight.

He valued pretty things.

Fujin had thought them useless.

Perhaps that's why he never regarded her as anything at all.

They were all here with her, watching his little pep rally. Raijin was being an idiot as usual, asking if she was okay over and over again. Well meaning. Moronic. Dincht, on the other hand, was an idiot she had absolutely no care for, and was currently slavering over Squall's ever whim. The martial artist's Fearless Leader wasn't biting, though. He didn't care for words.

Fujin got that.

Still, if she'd ever needed moral support - which a soldier most assuredly did not - then this was about the best the albino was ever going to do. The wind was doped up and under control. Bring it on, fucker.

"This is Sir Seifer Almasy, Knight Commandant of the Nation of Neo-Galbadia. The gracious Headmaster Cid, realizing the rightness of our cause, has announced his gift of control of Balamb Garden for use in my crusade. Sadly, the Garden of Trabia has not yet responded to our overtures, and our own Galbadian Garden remains occupied by traitors to the ideals of the nation! But you must take heart. The recovery of Balamb is not the only joyous occasion I present to you, the Citizens of the True Republic. Today we are reborn under our most righteous of leaders. Today we greet not only the dawning of a new era for these young men and women, but for a nation. Today we are uplifted by the divine and rightful order set forth by Hyne Herself. I give you our new leader... the Sorceress Rinoa!"

Admittedly, she hadn't braced herself for this eventuality. Which was probably why she wanted to rip that black-eyed girl in half. Squall just looked interesting.

"Greetings, people of Neo-Galbadia!"

All dolled up in white with filmy cloth angel wings. Wave for the people, Rinoa. Smile for the camera. His perfect china doll, his perfect princess, his _everything_ that she'd refused to be was solid and powerful and everything that she could never be anyways. So she'd been waiting, had she? So he'd thrown away six years of them for that stupid fling he'd kept waiting in the wings for years and she was supposed to mean more to him than that but there he was, not affected at all, on to the next Sorceress like nothing had happened at all that _bastard_...

"OFF!"

This was not soldierly.

"Psychotic jerkoff... he killed Quistis! I always knew that hella fucking..." Zell muttered in the background, though Fujin was oblivious.

"You wanna SHUT UP, Dincht? " Raijin, on the other hand, was not.

She was still yammering in the background when a Squall who sounded only mildly moved half-heartedly attempted to calm things down

"We shouldn't assume anything."

She was till. this was unprofessional... that ... that girl should... they should.... **_shut the hell up_**....

"OFF, NOW!"

Fujin did not wait well. It was easier to stalk out of the room than watch Zell and Raijin squabble, and Seifer profane their life.

RAGE.

***

There are certain places and certain times that one can't help but remember. A blight upon the synapses so deep that even the instability of memory is vanquished by the shadow of another time. Maybe not exactly recorded, mind you, by the workings of chemicals into a logical photograph of events. Things so profound are often embellished by the mind for various and sundry measures of drama, self-pity, or revenge.

Selphie Timlett knew, on some level or another, the second that she heard the news that this was going to be one of those moments. A Siren, pretty as she was, couldn't hope to charm her way into this particular pocket of grey matter. Sure, in later years the dive she was currently seated at the counter of was a little more tobacco-stained. The dirty, jobless old men that pinched her ass on the way in multiplied by at least three, and the coffee was much stronger than the lukewarm reject of a breakfast brew that she was currently imbibing. The waitress' unnaturally large eyes gained a malevolent air, and everything was just a touch more greasy.

But really, that's rather irrelevant.

The general gist of the thing would remain etched into granite for all time. Selphie Timlett, sittin' on a barstool at eight in the morning, trying to talk herself out of remembering a one-night stand. Nothing too out of the ordinary to this sort of place, in this sort of neighborhood, in this sort of town. And she'd started to relax into the pleather just a bit, psyching herself up to make a break for the sewers again, when Seifer Almasy's voice left the telescreen.

Yeah, yeah. They'd been looping it for an hour now. Everyone got the point. What did it matter to Selphie? Wasn't like anyone she knew was on there, and as sorry as she felt for the people there she couldn't really do anything, and she didn't' really know them. Bigger fish to fry, Selph - just keep movin' since your doing fine. You dont' need that Irvine anyways, he was just an... a...

...something.

Brooding about Irvine wasn't doing her any kinda good. Silver lining and all that had to be wandering around here somewhere.

After that came the accurate part. The hard-as-rock purity of vivid fact. No stray thoughts to be lost to Lethe here.

It started with a kind of rumbling noise from the back. The old men were cranky under their baseball caps and cheap black-market cigarettes. But it soon spread to her inner ear as the blood rushed to her head, roaring, pounding, trying desperately to drown out those enthusiastically squeaked comments form the local propaganda monger.

"Sir Seifer Almasy, concerned for the welfare of the nation and in accordance with the Sorceress Rinoa's plan for enforced global peace, has been forced to eradicate counterrevolutionary forces stationed at Trabia Garden. The mercenaries, who refused to join Sir Almasy in the crusade for world harmony, were heavily armed and obviously insurgent. Sir Almasy regrets the loss of life, and states that it pains him to have to take such measures to bring about what will surely be a glorious new age in humanity - an age without such children of war that resided there."

The voice was canned. Impersonal and brisk. And so was Selphie.

She rose, and placed a wad of gil on the table. Bathed in the screens' technicolor glow, the still-smiling waitress did not notice.

_Breathe, Selph.. breathe. You can do this. You can do anything. You always thought.. they always..._

There were no emerald glares to stop the men ogling her as she strode out the door, or tears to spite her eyes.

_They're all dead.. all of them all your friends.. Even the SeeD ones.. all of them are.. you should have been able too..._

_Lisa, Maggie, Jose, gone gone **gone**. In the past._

_But I don't want to forget them... I don't want them to be lost ot the past. Oh Hyne **why**..._

She wasn't going to cry. Selphie Timlett never cried. Selphie Timlett was that silver lining, with a metallic strength to bear the world.

_But I have to.. I have to..._

Funny, it never occurred to her that metal could feel number than previously advertised.

_He.. he's the only one left and I left him too oh Hyne I can't why are they **I don't want to be alone...**_

It was easy to trace her way back to the motel. Just follow the rubble. She'd find him there, maybe. Hopefully.

_Why.. why would someone do this?_

She knew the answer to most of her questions. SeeDs are never stupid people, though perhaps not always proficient in the standard bastions of academia. The real morons got killed during testing.

_I don't want to be alone I.. have to.. I have to..._

_I have to keep going._

When she got there, they told her he'd been taken away by some soldiers in a half-naked weapons bust.

But she'd find him.

_I have to._

She'd wrangle disobedient lips into an iron-clad smile if she had to. And pretend to be alright. Because that was what she did, wasn't it? So that she wouldn't be alone.

_I have to. Turn that frown upside-down, Selph._

_I will. They wouldn't want me to dwell on them. Oh Hyne I want to dwell on..._

They wouldn't take him to the palace. Probably a Caraway's Barracks. She's find him there, and then they would.. they would...

_They'd want me to do something about it. That was always me. Get everyone together, do something... Festival Committee or whatever. That was why they liked me. I'm a doer, not a dweller._

It was not an unforgettable event because of the carnage or the loss or the death. Selphie had lost that much to her parasite already. Been there. Done that. Nay, it was what she decided to do next while skulking about Delling alleyways with an oddly authentic-looking cheer.

She was a doer.

_And I'm gonna do like I always do. I'm gonna **do** something about this. My friends.. they're not in the past yet if I don't let them leave. They have to be set free... I have too.._

_I owe them that._

_It's the kind of thing they'd think I'd do._

And she was going to do what only a professionally-trained terrorist could do. She was going to rescue herself some backup, hijack an army transport to the missile silos, and consign the last burning vestige of her friends to the past. Wipe out that monument to their memories which dared to survive in their wake.

And through it all, even if she didn't feel like it, she was going to keep that rock-hard smile.   


***   


Squall Leonhart had absolutely no idea what he was doing. In her office, or attempting to gain her ear for that matter. He of all people knew the value of solitude.

"Do you need to.. talk about it?" the words made him wince. They were the kind of empty, subtanceless prattle that annoyed him to no end usually. But the lion didn't really know what else to say, and nobody was getting any useful planning done with Fujin out of commission. Nobody else was going to do anything, but what was he supposed to accomplish?

She was smart. And she was being.. irrational.

Squall didn't get women. Even women soldiers. This one was back in her office chair, staring off into space. Not crying or anything - thank Hyne, that would have been worse - but.. upset. Or something. He didn't know. How was he supposed to know? This was not good.

Sure, there were rumors about... goings on between her and Almasy, but the lion had seen no need to pay attention to gossip. The world according to Zell held no tangible interest. And the wind had seemed too sensible for that sort of idiocy.

"What do you think?" an equally empty answer. In the comprehension department, things were looking up.

They were due to arrive at the Esthar border in a couple hours. He needed her logical.

...Needed? No. he didn't need people. Bad word choice. Owed her was more like it.

"... you're upset." It wasn't a question, and her lack of violent response gave the mercenary valid tactical reason to think that he could move a bit closer. Maybe over to the side of the desk.

"Why do you care?" she ran herself in circles like the sea breeze.

Reap the whirlwind.

"We do have a Garden to save," the storm looked down upon his sort-of partner.

"Fuck the Garden," it was suprisingly bitter.. for her. The commander looked like she could use a drink.

But even sober she wasn't making sense, so that was a no go.

"Excuse me?"

"He'll win,' dejected. Squall understood that too, but it was the last thing they needed. Surely, if she were thinking clearly, the woman would be ashamed of herself.

If he thought correctly.

"How do you know?" a good question. Almasy hardly had an overpowering tactical advantage if they were able to recruit Esthar to their side. Superior tech like that shielding had almost crushed Galbadia before, and that was without the largest Garden onside. The Commander should know that.

"He already has," Fujin grumbled, attempting to seethe stoically. Stoic really wasn't her thing.

Irrational. He didn't know how to reason someone out of irrational, and reason was just about all the mercenary had.

So he did what any good fighter would do in this situation to a shocked comrade. Specifically, the leather-clad warrior bent down and took a delicate lily-white chin in his left hand. The right gloved palm slapped her.

That brought some life back, at least, as well as putting a bit of red in the woman's cheeks...

"RAGE!"

"Calm down. We pull into FH in an hour," Squall shushed her, hoping against all hope that his 'brilliant' plan would return Fujin to semi-coherency soon. It was hard being the only sane person in the Garden. Being surrounded by morons had never been a life plan, but things always ended up that way for some odd reason and...

That this was what she must do was left unsaid. A Fujin worth working with - the Fujin who had managed to draft him into this foolishness - would know what he'd been doing.

She wasn't saying anything either, though. Not a sound marred the electrical buzz of militarily-inclined white noise. It was... disconcerting. Squall felt like he should be doing.. something... he didn't know..

"I... liked Rinoa, you know. A bit, " Leonhart offered before he knew what he was saying. Wasn't planning on thinking about that. Just sort of came up. He was.. glad that Heartilly was alive. She was the fragile kind - the sort that wouldn't make it on their own.

Odd. He usually despised that.

It was getting colder in the room. The AC was working overtime again. Maybe Leonhart _should_ just leave her be... with what he'd seen of Fujin, she might try to stab him or something now..

"I should break up Raijin and Zell."

Dincht would probably smash the flight console or something equally moronic, and Hyne knew what Raijin would do with that big stick thing to their comm equipment...

"Let them be. They're morons, " the short-haired woman shook her head slowly, finally heeding his presence again. " We'll figure out how to approach Loire."

Under control again. Good. All was right with the world.

"Now?"

" NOW"

Somehow, on the lower frequencies, he knew that she was in her own way thanking him. By working and being unobtrusive or whatever elusive quality it was that the rain liked so much as to join with he wind in hurricane.

The remainder of Squall Leonhart was breathed a fairly apathetic sigh of relief before taking a seat.

"We want nothing to do with this .. conflict."

"Yes. But Esthar will want to force us into an alliance."

"Certainly."

"Maybe they'll pay."   


***

Surprisingly enough, Zell Dincht and Raijin Kasim were not beating each other to bloody pulps in the command room. Not that doing so wouldn't' have been extremely attractive to both parties, but they had buds to take care of.

If opposites attract, the like must repulse like.

"He's not good for her, ya know," an eavesdropping giant whispered.

"You mean she'd hella not good for _him,_ " Zell never could resist the urge to combative, even when listening at a doorway. Mr.Stealth he was not.

".. Yeesh, they need to lighten up, ya know? When Seifer was around..."

"I hear ya. At least with that stupid Rinoa chick Squall would loosen up kinda. Together," Zell shuddered, "They're, like, _robot-people_."

"I just hope they figure out we gotta take on Seifer before this creepy no-feeling thing gets, ya know, outta hand. Fujin hasn't kicked me for hours. That's never good, ya know? "

"Totally."

"Hey! What's that supposed ta mean?"

"Shhhh - we're spying."

They didn't notice Fujin cast a red-eyed glance at the entrance to the office, nor did they catch a white-furred shrug and mouthed 'whatever'. That was probably for the best.

" We gotta do something!"

"Hell yeah!"

Nodding conspiratorially, the two non-friends wandered off to concoct a plan. That didn't even merit the acknowledgement of an overused catchphrase.   


***

Laguna Loire didn't have many things going for him.

Okay, so he was president of the second largest and most technologically advanced nation on the planet. Well... and he had that cool spaceship thing. And he got to pay his two best buddies and informal posse exorbitant amounts of money to do little more than harass him into completing paperwork. And he'd put some evil man/woman/sorceress monster on ice and saved the world and stuff. That plus the fact that half the nation's women wanted to get into his pants faster than you can say 'man with the machine gun'.

But still. Didn't matter. Loire was firmly convinced of the fact that he was horribly, terribly deprived.

"Hey Kiros - what's up!"

Take, for example, the man currently passing through a perfunctory retinal scan to gain access to the presidential suite. Talk, dark, and somewhat effeminate - that was his best buddy. It was always kinda depressing to Laguna that Kiros hadn't, y'know, been there when the president heard that Raine was pregnant.

He had a way of making sure that Laguna didn't screw up. Kinda like the national ... stopper... of bad things... type.. guy. Yeah. Whatever.

So really, didn't it sorta suck to be Laguna right now? Y'know, comparatively? Julia and Raine were gone - nope, not gonna think about it an' let that get him all down - and Kiros wasn't there. Leading back to wanting to be like Kiros, which Laguna knew he never would be for reasons beyond simple stuff like the fact he would look really crappy in dreads. His knee was all hurting with that stabbing joint collapsing pain thing - what was up with that? - and his son...

His son was on the telescreen.

Kiros better get here soon. An errant 'hi' over the intercom wasn't really helping anything. Besides which Laguna knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had absolutely no idea how to deal with this.

"President Loire?" the boy, who looked way too much like Raine not to cause a bit of heartache here and there, was all dome up like a soldier. Laguna knew he shouldn't really be surprised - kid wasn't raised in the nice shiny semi-transparence of Esthar, was he? Hell, the reluctant politician and president-for-life his kind was gonna be a soldier. Guess he just always thought that.. that...

That he wouldn't really take to it. Like his old man, eh? He'd always just kind of... you know.. figured. Wasn't like he could've gone back.

"Sorry, sorry.. we should wait for my aide, alright?" realizing that the kid was looking at him funny, and that leaning into a mahogany desk had left a nasty red mark on his arm, the former journalist straitened up and answered.

"I understand," again the soldier thing. The boy sounded like a polar bear on ice. The steel and crimson and strange blinking lights behind him didn't really help with that.

Laguna hadn't planned for him to turn out that way. He didn't plan on alot of things, really. Just sorta assumed his son would be with him one day, just like he assumed that he would take as badly to gunpowder and bloodshed as his old man had. He'd never really figured out that he wasn't working with the greatest of partners. Lady luck had covered the ex-journalist's back for most of his adult life with a good-calibre rifle and the aim born of a blind infatuation. But she was never good for the big stuff like love and family and death.

Fuck, his leg _hurt._

Calling it an uncomfortable situation was an understatement.

But his sort-of aide was here, so all was well. Kiros was quiet and good with sneaking type things, but that lanky frame gave him away by the light of the hallway.

Well, that and the motion sensors. Whatever. Here he comes to save the day.

"Kiros!" Laguna waves the stick of a man in, though he seemed content to catch his breath. Guy had to start exercising more, 'cause Laguna sure as hell wasn't getting older and neither was the rest of the world. Must be out of shape.

"President Loire," regaining himself through Hyne knew what means, Kiros moved into the screen's range of visibility.

"Kiros, may I introduce Commander..." gesturing towards the lad - Laguna had always talked with his hands - Loire attempted to do the presidential thing. He did have practice, if not aptitude.

"Co-Commander."

The president was not usually interrupted, but then this wasn't just any president. And Squall wasn't just any petitioner. And it was hard not to be just a tiny bit bemused when he caught the highly significant twitch made in the direction of a certain albino young lady. Ah. Weird how short-and-pissed could be so completely opposite to Kiros and yet so the same. Maybe Squall took after his pop after all... just a little.

No use going there. Even Laguna knew when his chance was up.

"Co-Commander Squall Leonhart of Galbadia Garden, then," it wasn't hard for him to smile. Laguna was good at it.

"Kiros Seagill, my advisor," introductions thankfully made to par, his friend nodded. Still standing, though - wouldn't do to have him sit in the president's 'illustrious' presence.

"The Co-Commander has petitioned us for asylum, Kiros."

Squall looked tense. They wanted different things, Laguna knew.

"And?" Seagill raised a brow.

"I've agreed to allow Galbadia Garden to dock here in the short term," Laguna asked-without-asking. He knew Kiros would catch on. Always did.

"As you wish, sir."

Oh, right. That was the signal for 'good'. Excellent. Kiros would want them to do something about Almasy - hell, Laguna kind of did too - but it... it would be nice to see him. Just to have seen him.

This was why he needed Kiros around. They were on the brink of a third Sorceress War, and the president of the world's nominally most powerful nation was obsessing about a kid he'd never met.

"You have our thanks," the scarred mercenary nodded, crystal-clear an the latest flatscreen tech. Not mousish like Raine at all - he had his dad's charisma too, even if he didn't know it. When he was a kid the chicks went wild for that small grin thing.

'Course, Laguna'd been faking. But still.

"We need to make preparations to land."

"Of course. We'll meet again once you're settled and discuss the Almasy situation."

And lo, the echo of rain was consigned to static.

"Fuck... my leg is_ killing_ me. Kiros, call my physiotherapist..."

***

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~

Midnight. It was always midnight here. Starless.

She could still hear them when they were near her. If she wanted too.

"Heya Trepe - glad not to be dead yet, bitch? You're lucky Rinoa had a Sorceress' delicacy."

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC ~

She was singing with them. They were teaching her how to.

"Not that I don't want one, understand, but I can afford to wait until you croak. She plays her part perfectly."

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~

The midnight she floated in shifted with a thousand shades of pitch black. They were with her. She was not alone.

"How does it feel not to be needed, Trepe? You were always so fucking obsessed with having your little groupies and hangers on."

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~

But she was not dead. Oh no. They were just teaching her the songs.

"They're scared of her because of some nylon wings. It's no wonder they need me around! You fucking moron, if you'd have been reasonable that could've been you. Skank. "

They'd let her hear them, talking over her body/home/anchor. The girl - blue/angel/air - hadn't been able to kill her. She would learn no songs today.

"The whole country is mine now. Nobody resists a sorceress. As it should be."

It was darker beneath her eyelids, when she bothered to look her. They'd hidden her away somewhere. They didn't bother with the chemical/sleep/unconciousness that the ones before them had. Made it easier to sing.

"And I killed your little fucktoy Cid. Is poor Quisty upset?"

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~

"Trabia too. Mine. I just have to take Esthar and everything will be perfect. You'll just have to have a little... accident, in a while "

Quistis was a quick study.

"Poor instructor. You'd be ever so upset with me. Maybe even punish me with that big, baaad whip of yours."

It would be time to wake up soon.

"Tomorrow, I'll take aim at Fisherman's Horizon. They harbor traitors, and they are the gateway to the lost republic. Balamb will fly and the world will know the authority of a Sorceress. Tomorrow I'm going to start a holy war. Aren't you proud? "

**~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC!~**   


***

_Author's note:_ Yeah, I know it's been a while. Quite honestly, I'd fully planned to never touch this fic again. Lack of inspiration and rot.

But hey, sometimes lightning stikes twice. I blame 'Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath'. that is *the* Selphie inspirational song. Sure, it sounds all goth and doofy with the lyrics, but the tune itself sounds really cute and happy.

Bah. Oddly enough, I thought that Selphie was one of the strongest people in the game. Selphie, Fujin, and Quistis. Weird, non? But even though she seems like a flake, she really kept it together even when Trabia blew up and stuff, unlike several other semi-psychotic angst-factories I could name ^_^ .


	9. epilogue - found a cure

**Broken Mirror**   
**act one - shatter**   
epilogue - found a cure   
  


I don't feel a thing   
And I've stopped remembering   
Days are just like moments, turned to hours

Mother used to say   
If you want you'll find away   
But mother never danced through fire showers

I walk in the rain

- Rain, _Yoko Kanno_   
  


***

_Galbadia Garden touched down in the Independent Republic of Esthar (not to be confused with the Sorcerous Republic of Esthar, or the pending Ultimecia's Big Giant Crater o' Former Republic and Clocktower Fun) at exactly two thirty-three in the morning, Horizon Standard Time. It arrived with a leaking hydraulic pipe the left quadrant which had been the cause of many 'character building' experiences with steam burns, several broken widows, and an almost nonexistent paint job. In other words - a giant wobbly wreck. Not that their commanders would admit it in public at the time, or in private after. Many later researchers would even theorize that the infamous Fujin Asher had deluded herself into thinking that just sanding off the rest of the red and making it silver was all her aesthetic idea. Which was of course silly. Even if she had liked it better (which she did - immaterial), the commander would not have made a decision based on aesthetics. Nay - the albino would have made it because it would take a good three months to get the damn thing fixed anyways._

_And so she did._

_Galbadia Garden Academy was, at the moment or repatriation, neither Galbadian, an Academy, or a Garden. The students been forced to cannibalize the trees for what meager scraps could sustain them through an ocean voyage. Squall hadn't cared in the least,. since he was happy with standard rations. And Fujin - the red-eyed soldier had heartily approved. Zell and Raijin were naturally not valid members of this authoritarian democratic process._

_But this narrator digresses._

_The state of one Non-Galbadian Non-Academy Non-Garden Fortress of Doom is generally known because of a rather detailed record kept by the captain in charge of Salt Flats border access control at the time - one Jen-Mai Chiu. Not a terribly out of the ordinary action on her part. That she should receive orders from the President himself to admit a heavily armed group of highly trained mercenaries was dubious at best. And the woman could be forgiven, considering the events which had passed in the seventy-two hours before touchdown, for backing up any claim of false pretense in the issuing of said orders. An insurance policy up to and including saving her own ass if a bunch of teenage nutcases decided to attack the capital under some kind of sorcerous order. One never know what a sorceress could do, after all. The people of Esthar knew that best of anyone at all._

_No one knew why they left merely three days later. Resupplied and bleeding. A stunningly reckless move. Squall Leonhart and Fujin Asher were not the sorts for explanations._

_Pity those who are left behind_

***

Alright. It was official. He'd been hiding it from himself for years - trying desperately to keep it from himself with a few self-assuring glances in the mirror. He was Laguna Loire. He was good looking. He was a leader. And gosh darnit, people liked him.

But damned if he wasn't a gimp.

... oh well.

"Are you really sure that this is necessary?"

Laguna levered himself back in to the wheelchair that waited, like a kicked puppy, in a more reviled corner of the office.

"Completely," the slender man who'd presented his superior with it raised an eyebrow. Or perhaps that was just a question. And he just kept staring and staring and sating 'till Laguna had to take refuge in some stupid tax report that Ward would do the figures on anyways. 'Cause that was just about all the President of Esthar, master of all he surveyed, was capable of at the moment. Laguna Loire was, after all, in his very heart of hearts, below the styling gel and the tropical print shirts and the manic grin and those eyes that always managed just the right amount of glint with a camera flashbulb...

Afraid.

"Do you think he knows yet?" the daemon crept into his voice. That was not a mistake that Loire often allowed. Lady Luck loved a gambling man, not a tentative wreck.

".. honestly?" his robed friend queried. Kiros was there, naturally. Kiros was always there. His mahogany skin and flint-black eyes were as regular as the office furniture. Except more.. umm.. smart and stuff.

Sweeping his eyes over the firefly lights below the presidential palace, Laguna already knew what the answer to his question would be. He wasn't a reporter for nothing. But then the politician usually wasn't depressive either. Maybe it was just tonight - to revolutions on the lunar clock since he's met the kid. His kid.

No.. no, not his kid, Raine's kid. There was a difference.

.. or maybe it was just the flat feeling of a martini drying on his tongue.

"Yeah. Lemme have it, Kiros. I'm a terrible parent, okay, I _get_ that. I mean.. look how screwed up that kid is," gesturing wildly - the president felt himself seizing up a bit as cold leather hit his skin. Stupid chair. The cameras loved it not. And he couldn't actually _walk_ anywhere near the damn kid and it really was annoying and he really really wished he could keep babbling in his head 'cause sometimes what your thinking isn't really what you're..."Do.. do you think he _knows_?"

To be frank, the man looked stricken. Sitting there in a silence punctuated by the static of wind and traffic. The silence between the streets threatened to swallow him, and the sky somehow seemed more fathomless when smog and streetlights blotted out navigable stars.

".. I doubt it," Kiros shrugged, in a very Kiros-like sort of way. Which really wasn't much description, but whatever. "Fujin might. She reminds me of me, in a really really scary sort of way."

Uncharacteristically pensive, the larger man nodded in what he had dubbed the gimp-mobile.

The more the kid was around, the more he got like him. Wierd.

"That's good," the conclusion was.. processed.

".. don't you think it would be better of you just told him?"

Typical Kiros. Arms crossed, with that 'I'm bemused and graceful and you can't touch me so do what I say or I'll never leave you alone, and yes I _can_ harass you and still be classy' expression.

If Loire could walk, he would so have done.. ummm.. something to that guy right now. Yeah. Something painful.

"Naaaaaah. If I was him, I'd want a mom and dad that died heroes in a war or whatever. Not some loser that abandoned him for some kid that's not even his own," Laguna fought to maintain his tone- voice chopping in and out like waves on the breakers. If he could say it fast, he could say it. Good theory. _Good_ theory. "Who does this hurt?"

"You."

And then maybe the stars did come out. Just a little. If the clouds thought to let them have a view before it started raining and beading his brow with a humid sweat.

"..... yah, guess so. It's about time I met the kid in person, since he's already been here the weekend and all. We goin'?"

"That we are."

The raindrops hit his skin on the way to the limo - mixing with the cold moisture of his body. Ha. What a laugh. What a fucking joke! Raine woulda been all over him for that. Which was of course the point.

Heroes aren't afraid of water. _Squall Leonhart_ wasn't afraid of water. Wasn't afraid of anything - 'cept maybe himself, but that's healthy right? The kid was better than Laguna that way.

The kid would be better than Laguna all the way - real, honest, large as life legend if the president played his cards right. Kid just needed some encouragement, and he'd understand eventually. 'Sides, somebody had to do it. This little plan of his was one bitch of a child support payment.

A child support payment.. that wasn't there. When they arrived at their destination in place of silver a gaping hope lay in the Salt Flats. Torn scaffolding that had just been erected waved pitifully in the wind.

Laguna Loire's voice went with it - a tattered banner waving in the rain-caressed breeze. One single patch of white on a grey, grey night.

"Kiros.. he knows, doesn't he? She told him."

".... I suppose she did."

"And he left."

"Yes."

"Why do you think that is, Kiros? Am I so...."

"Come on, Laguna. They'll do fine on their own if we keep them in supplies - I'll have my people on the Market give them some discrete discounts. If we try to use them as a weapon they'll just turn on us."

"I suppose so," Laguna resigned himself, staring off into the emptiness.

"Come on," Kiros invited, a little less placid than usual in a vague attempt to cheer his old friend up. "Almasy has Balamb and most of Northern Trabia. You know where he'll go once he has the rest of it. Esthar's been isolated for far too long."

Laguna nodded into the torrent, "We have a war to fight."   


***

_It became painfully obvious what exactly they were doing only a week afterwards, and for the next three months a Garden growing ever stronger with the relentless pace of the tide kept to itself. Equipped with a piecemeal patchwork of parts purchased off of the Estharian black market (instead of the President, who seemed oddly concerned about the whole mess, but decided to leave be)._

_The depths of the aforementioned Gardened were a tangled web of vines now. Interim wiring and haphazard housing for extra day students taken on had created no less than a steel jungle. But three months does alot for people. Three months is a time frame for repair. Healing. Rehabilitation._

_And of course, the acquisition of funds._

_The children of the dead had finished mourning their own. And conquered rather than negotiated through their obvious mortality. They were, after all, soldiers. And they healed without counsellors or closure or therapy. They healed because the lame don't survive in the wild, and their broken bones were used to mending on the run. They healed because Squall Leonhart wanted them to be. They healed because Fujin Asher said so. And because of whatever trick of karma had put them in the here and now._

_Realistic people, orphans._

_The new Garden was uglier - cramped and waiting for battle. Training was purely combat-oriented, and dorm politics had fallen to a strict military system. Call it the commander's prerogative - that feared/admired/oft bitched-about Squafuu entity which stalked the halls. They were as orderly as only a mass of spooked teenagers could be. Organized in their collective desire for a liberating dose of chaos._

_But the strange thing - the very strangest thing that people would look back on in decades and just all-out gape at, was that they liked it. They really, truly, honestly liked it. The time, the place, the fact that they were one ominous inch away from completely stir-crazy. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they liked **him**. Leonhart. The one who possessed a strength so careless that it numbed them into the happy oblivion of blind faith. (Some people with certain sympathies fool themselves into thinking that a hero-worshipping mass liked Fujin as well - not so, fellow scholars. Not so. You can't embrace the wind. And you sure as hell can't embrace a reflection. Mind that or you'll cut yourself)._

_Alas, poor Squall. One of history's most studied leaders, and really nothing more than an sort of idolized morphine injected into the collective vein of a disenfranchised youth. They'd been pumping other drugs for years - enough to scar the conveniently plush tissue around arteries around the joints. But inserting the needle under the eyeball made it more potent anyways._

_Pity the flood that sustains a plague of saplings forming roots. Pity the wind that thins their leaves so that the strongest reach sunlight. And pity those caught in the storm that forms between them._   


***

Red, white, and gunmetal - the stars and stripes of the command console forever.

They were nothing but a mid-sized group of cargo barges hovering over the the Balamb shores. And the crew was, quite frankly, damn proud of that. They weren't just a cargo convoy. They were a cargo convoy serving the Holy Crusade. And that made all the difference.

Most of the young men on the bridge of the head of the small fleet were young enough to be that idealistic. They still loved their blood-red uniforms, and the cross-sword on the national flag. Placid and joking and happy and useful enough not to be bored (though they surely would have died for their fair Mistress, if one was to take their word). The lapping of the waves and a tropical breeze steadied them on their way.

It was a very routine day for Supply Convoy #D-30.

"Sir, we're picking up a signal off the port bow," a helmsman - generically dressed, undistinguished in physique - scanned his post with revolutionary ardor and came up with something. Something that was not the ordinary silence and naive military pride of this particular glorified meal cart.

Something not routine at all.

"What kind of signal?" an older, gruff sort of man questioned. He was obviously the captain - there were few enough men over forty with combat experience still alive to be in the military as it was.

He'd trained them all, really.

Trained them to recognize the signs from the debriefing, when they showed up in a stark neon green on the black of the display screen. To read the displays, and know the scare, and not to panic. Two out of three really wasn't bad at all, given the circumstance and the rumors.

That was when the panic started.

"Large object - probably flying. It's approaching at one hundred knots," the young man spoke past the knot in his throat.   
"That's... that's ramming speed, sir."

"No.. it can't be," the commander shook his head, eyes wide. His career couldn't end now on some half-assed transport!

"Oh Hyne. It's really them..."

Them. They. It. Those who are not us. The Enemy. The one and only group outside of heathen Esthar who'd managed to defy the forced of the righteous. Accursed, corrupted Galbadia Garden, a shark upon the waves.

The Traitor Fujin Asher. Scourge of Hyne's six seas.

"Sir, what should we..." the babble began. Starting slow and speeding into full, screeching throttle like a train-wreck waiting to happen.

"Initiate evasive procedures! Tell the rest of the caravan to scatter - we need these beam rifles in Balamb yesterday!"

But they were not sharks, to bite and tear and wrestle their way away from the gaping jaws of the great white. The ships of Supply Convoy #D-30 were nothing but sitting ducks. All half-dozen of its nucleus of crew members suddenly shocked into attentiveness; a glass of cool reality thrown into their faces.

"Pilot's of Her Royal Highness' Supply Convoy #D-30," the older man barked into an aging intercom, " we are under attack. Repeat - we are under attack. Air pirates approaching from the port bow. All units scatter and regroup at the Timber RAF Base. We'll hold them off as long as we can."

"Is this for real?" the helmsman meekly asked, overshadowed by his obviously hysterical shipmates. Poor kids. They didn't stand a chance against Pirates - former garden mercenaries. They were just.. well... children.

Like he'd been, once upon a time. When the great crusade was to burn a sorceress, not burn for her.

Seifer's Holy Crusade...

Oh Hyne, was this for _real_? It seemed like some halfassed fairytale....

"Sir, can you confirm..."

The babble started. A storm was on the horizon, and maybe none of them had ever really been ready. These kids weren't like the orphans. They had been allowed to forget.

"Sorceress Rinoa," they whispered, young and old, in the face of impending doom. Some faithful, some faithless, and some desperately grabbing at whatever belief they could find. Everyone had herd the rumors about Fujin Asher and her mysterious vaguely royal lover - the woman who had dared to spit in the face of the Holy Knight himself. Such sin! Such blasphemy! Some said she broke into a jealous rage when she heard of the glory of the great Rinoa. That she cruised the seas in search of revenge; crew slaughtering all in their path to spite the dictates of Hyne. They stole and they raped and they killed and they were a thousand more places then they ever possibly could have been, because they were Enemy. They were one of two remaining sins, and one far less easily quantified and more willfully defiant than Esthar.

They were the Mortal Flaw. The incarnation of What Went Wrong.

"Sorceress Rinoa, pray for us all."   


***

_ Truly an engineering masterpiece, the nameless seat of the robber lords - a silver-tinted engine of destruction who's smooth marine contours belied the tangled vines within. Each part had been created, moulded, and shaped specifically to its purpose; even the biological components that were a few hundred teenagers drugged to numbness. Galbadia Garden was not the home to the middle of the best for nothing._

_History remembers the Fallen Garden on a certain pedestal of mechanistic glory. It was, after all, constructed to evade the Holy Army of Hyne herself. Home to perhaps the largest-scale guerilla operation in record - a ragtag group of underfed students that would come to be called the Air Pirates. They came out of nothing like smoke on the water, their shining chariot skulking about the most remote parts of the deep blue sea. Places where even Seifer Almasy's glorious radar could not penetrate. A strike here, a grab there, and supply lines for the Neo-Galbadian Army were cut in any imaginable sector of the six seas with little visible rhyme or reason. Their leaders, it was rumored, consisted of a bastard prince and his lover, a mysterious silver-haired woman rumored to be the sylphid daughter of the wind-god Pandemona. Renegades leading children with vengeance in their eyes._

_Rumors are like that sometimes._

_Pity the machine designed to destroy since before its very first breath. Pity the designers who know what they wrought, and loved it._

_***_

The salt air no longer stung her cuts like it had used to - a combination of scar tissue and her long black coat at work. Standing on the outer deck and directing a battery of grappling hooks (this was not the time or the place for mech frames - repairs were a bitch and a half on their budget) had finally become tolerable three months after her fall. And to be honest, she wasn't so sure if she liked that.

Fujin had grown accustomed to a certain amount of pain in her day.

"GO!" the commander shouted by necessity over the whipping draft of velocity and roiling waves below their main thrusters. It would be quite a fall if any of her people were to get knocked off, and magic (being the one thing they could not rob with impunity) was too precious at this draw-deprived point to waste on a single grunt worker.

They all knew that too. Which was why only the most taciturn, suicidal, and cocky sorts volunteered for Fujin's shift. That was also the point, since those were without question the best equipped to strike fear into the hearts of the merchant navy and strip them for all they were worth.

They also tended to be orphans. Fujin liked that.

"ROGERS! GARNEAU!" The cables fired in response to an unspoken command, "BOARD... "

The former students - if they'd ever needed teaching - lined up by their respective ticket to looter's heaven in tattered clothing. Many would get new outfitting today - coats to be mutilated into the unofficial Garden uniform of irregularity. Uniforms were unimportant to a true soldier. Or at least too damn expensive, and nigh impossible to get ahold of.

"ON MY MARK!"

She, of course, stood behind and the world before they fell into a blur of motion. The cables had taken half a second. And inertia would jar them to a halt in another. Silver and blue. Wind and water falling upon Neo-Galbadian Red.

The world was nto in motion. The world _was_ motion. Seabound bodies in a whirlwind dance with their attacker.

"MARK!"

They'd try to scatter. The Neo-Galbadians were great followers, and horrible strategists. Or at least the ones on thesebndetails.

"DINCHT!" pale lips called into a small radio, the soldier's steel-toed boots struggling to keep a grip on the salt-stained deck as the Garden tilted with the strain of the lead barge anchoring it at starboard. "DEPLOY!"

"You got it," the albino could positively _hear_ the thumbs-up on the other side of the signal, through static and the groan of wounded metal. Squall had targeted their newly-puchased cannons to kill their propulsion, which made things alot easier, but Dincht and his people would have to go after the few smaller skiffs on those Balamb-style jet skis.

Which would do them all a huge amount of good. That idiot needed to burn off some energy or else they'd all have to start 'helping him practice judo' again. At least Raijin knew his place helping the kiddies and scaring the shit out of insubordinate upperclassmen (activities of which Fujin markedly approved).

Readying herself to cast a float spell and be the first to touch down on soon-to-be-scrap metal, Asher pulled out her shruiken with a regretful glance at the bridge. Squall was up there, of course. And a soldier like him should be leading his troops. But the mysteriously charismatic Mr. Leonhart was their trump card, and Seifer could under no circumstances be allowed to believe that their one hidden weapon was alive.

And he'd die before he actually complained about it. That was one of the things she liked about working with Leonhart.

So she took a moment to nod at the camera, before leaping off the edge of the railing and into the lambs sent for slaughter. It was really the least she could do. Their choreographed heists had grown so practiced that she could jump between two large moving hunks of steel in her sleep. They'd have this done in a half-hour easily.

It is when survival becomes routine that a place can be called home.

_***_

_But let us not talk of the spawn of air and water. It's nooks and crannies are familiar, its surface burns smooth and regular too the touch. Let's talk about a place deep in the earth, seized by the spawn of fire in a random fit of inferno. Three drills below the ground, forcing itself most unnaturally upon the solid earth. Drill Prison was a place of depression and stale sweat; a study in constriction, the one true re-creation of hell in a variant key._

_Or at least Selphie Timlett thought so, after having spent two months working as a guard there. It might have been too early for her to enact her plan. An avalanche, rather than the eternal caution of erosion. But that was Selphie Timlett for you- she would only take so much burrowing into the first circle of the inferno. She had a boy to save, and a place to go, and a vengeance to wreak._

_Pity ground impatient, after the sluggish preparatory motions of an age and a half, to quake._

***

Selphie Timlett - currently going by Sephie Tinton, Prison Guard - assumed that she felt sick to her stomach because of the grim.

Oooooh, the grime.

Drill Prison was a really, really disgusting place for three very important reasons. First of all, most of the prisoners were men, and most of those men were crazy crazy prisoners. Which meant that they were about at hygienic as a basket full of sewer rats, and with the scarcity of water bathed less than half as much. Second came the depth. 'Cause being underground was just creepy, and only Hyne knew where all that sand came from. Third and last was that the janitors were just really really hug slackers since nobody cared what the hell happened to prisoners here anyways.

Well, unless they caught that crazy Fujin chick. There was already a _room_ reserved for her with snakes and icky spiders and stuff. But that was neither here not there. 'Cause after two months of waiting in this horrible disgusting cave with these horrible majorly gross men Selphie Timlett wasn't gonna take it any more.

Revenge best served cold _her ass_.

"Hullo, Mr.Soldier-man!" the sprightly girl waved chipperly in her baggy grey guard togs. She hated these clothes like she hated this place and she hated Seifer Almasy. With a _passion_. Everything from the lack of sunlight to the torture devices to the cramped quarters to the clausterphobia-inducing halls to the clothes to the people they hired seemed calculated to grind somebody's spirit into little tiny bits and spit it out again.

"Buh-bye!" Which was why, when she waved, she made sure to knock the evil genocidal bastard out with a defiantly perky little thwack to the back of his head. Nunchucks were the_ best_.

Three months of stewing over the deaths of her friends and the robbery of the only other had given the magic-user plenty of time to brew an appreciation for poetic justice.

And open up the puke-green door with your very own official access card. Watch it hiss to see your fate. Ride along into the future.

The future was looking mighty bedraggled. But still kicking. And no limp hair and dirt-encrusted coat was gonna keep _her_ down.

"Wha.. Sephy?" bloodshot green eyes squinted blearily into the light. A man so disheveled should not sound so... innocent. and scared and hopeful all at once. Especially one nearly a foot taller than she was, huddled in a dank corner. "Hyne - it was really dark in there. I didn't like it at all. Where did you go?"

Clearing, the eyes looked pleadingly at hers. He didn't understand why she'd abandoned him - Hyne knew why. She'd have to make him, once they got the hell out of there.

"C'mon," the girl strode over, pulling on a limp-wristed arm. He hadn't been exercised - his muscles were worn thin. But.. you didn't need muscle to fire a gun, right? Dammit, she should have gotten here earlier. But it was haaard to get access to this wing.

Hauling Irvine Kinneas to his feet was no easy task. But once it was over with she was relieved to notice that he could at least walk. Selphie was starting to feel slightly nauseous again.

"Where are we going?" the long-haired, unshaven gunman clutched her arm for dear life. He smelled like lunch meat and cinnamon and wet puppies, but the prison was enough to drown that out thank Hyne. Frowning as much as she ever did, Selphie pushed the weakened assassin to the corrugated iron wall.

She was gonna have to know and get over it, if he was gonna help her. And he _was_ gonna help her. Help her make things majorly, majorly uncool for Seifer.

And then she'd finally be able to leave it all behind. Into the future we shall go.

"You killed Squall," she paused, hands traveling over the veins in his gaunt wrists, "right?"

"Yup!" the madman nodded proudly, like her approval was his whole world. Did he even remember he'd just spent three months in prison?

"Why? Wh-why would you do that, Irvy?" Selphie continued evenly, sure to keep her voice down.

Kinneas looked at his feet.

"Because he hurt matron."

... matron? Irvine had a _mom_? How.. weird. Like, mind-blowing meltdown weird. Why the hell would Squall hurt Irvine's mom? That was horrible! Not all of then had moms and dads, you know. Well, there was Zell.. but he _appreciated_ what he had. To actually.. to actually do to someone what they'd had done to them.. to consign them to fighting for any little scrap of affection or family they could find in a viper's pit of total strangers...

That was terrible.

That was.. EVIL.

No wonder he was so fucked up. It all made perfect sense. Such a wonderful alien creature, a _real live mother_....

"You had.. a mother? A _real_ mother?"

A real mom. The kind that was with you since you were bon. And she'd make you cookie and drive you to school and ground you when you did bad stuff and she'd be there for you when you cried and she'd always be there when you cried because that's what real moms are supposed to do.

Wow.

"Of course I did," Irvine looked sad, and kind of puzzled. "We all did once, Sephie."

"Yeah.. I guess we did," and Selphie, being Selphie, just couldn't resist giving the kicked puppy a big hug. "Shhhh... it's gonna be okay, Irvine. He can't hurt her anymore."

"I knew you'd get it!" Irvine hurriedly crushed her back, smell and all, but Timlett didn't mind choking a bit. She stayed rock-hard.

"Irvy," the girl whispered.

"Yeah?"

"If someone hurt me... would you hurt them back too?" and she'd started to cray a bit. Damn. Damn! Selphie Timlett did NOT cry.

"Of course!" the assassin cheerfully strangled her from within a shoddily-lit cell. "You're my best friend, Sephy! I'll never let you go away like her."

"Good. Because some people..," Selphie pulled away, under control again and whispering to his eyes. The ashes of Trabia drifted through her stone cold voice. "They hurt me Irvine. They hurt me alot. And we're going to blow them allll up. All up to the sky."

"We'll hurt them back Sephy. They can't start her smiling without us hurting them," Irvine swore, pulling away from the wall for once without that little-boy smile. "I promise!"

".. thank you, Irvy."

And so she held his hand with a fake pair of handcuffs to sneak them out. Prisoner transfer. Whatever.

"Sure thing!" he allowed himself to be dragged along. "...Can we go to the beach after that?"

"Of course. Of course we can."

And for the first time in a very long time, it seemed like everything was gonna be alright.

***

_Pure, decent ladies live not in the scorched earth of the desert, but in ivory towers. Those constructed for them in palaces and manses and (as in this case) Gardens by their lords. Or Knights, as the case may be._

_Which brings our tract to Rinoa Heartilly and Seifer Almasy._

_They were, all in all, a perfect couple. The camera looked upon them like a lover, and the passion radiating from them might reach the most hardened of hearts. Charismatic, beautiful, smoldering angels descended down from heaven to cleanse the world of war and sin and pain with one final searing fire. They wore white like the saints, and behaved that way as well, with the sort of noble chastity drawn strait for a fairy-tale._

_The Sorceress Rinoa, nominal ruler of Neo-Galbadia, and her protector Sir Seifer Almasy the Cross Knight did not need propaganda. They were the propaganda. And the people loved them - oh how they loved them. Better than a fairy-tale, better than a soap-opera, and better than a legend because they were real and Hyne had sent them down to save them all._

_Save us, Hyne, from the dogs of war. The Sorceress and her Knight shall make things perfect - of so finally perfect - if only they can turn the hearts of the world to their holy crusade. You can help them. They need you. Be strong for us, soldiers of the Holy Sorceress. Be strong, and the world will be healed. Death is for the good. Hunger is for the good. War and pain and rationing are your very last sacrifice._

_All in white. All is white. Help and they will pray for us, those charismatic paragons. Their magnetic eyes turned towards Hyne and heaven-on-earth._

_The Neo-Galbadian Army had swollen by almost three million souls since the ascension of Seifer Almasy._

_So you see, they had to live in an ivory tower fosterede in a magical, marine garden. They had an image to maintain. Seifer knew this, ruling over three quarters of the earth with impunity behind a raven-haired mask of a girl. Rinoa did not; and that, quite frankly, was better for most concerned._

_Pity the fire that dazzles the masses. Pity those blinded by the light._   


_***_

The report came in at exactly seven thirty-three in the evening. An e-mail over the Balamb internet, to be perused at Sir Almasy's discretion in a well-appointed room with lots of pacing space and expensive beige Winhill rugs. And it read much the same as most letters from that particular peon.

Cargo blahblahblah stolen by the Fallen Garden.

The Fallen Garden.

Just fucking _great_.

"Fuck, " the Knight moaned under his breath, filmy white curtains and imported cream marble apparently not having the intended stress-reducing effect. "Not _again_..."

The woman behind him did not notice this. She was enraptured by the state of her dress, an affair of ivory and feathers and pearls. Seifer would have bought her diamonds, but she said that those were gauche or whatever the hell the fashion word was. His Sorceress should _set _the fashion, not follow it.

But what she wanted, she would get.

"My lady," the blonde pleaded for the hundredth time, not even bothering to make eye contact anymore. She was too pure for this world, his Sorceress in waiting. She didn't understand. "We must do something about these atrocities. These raids are a disgrace! Are you sure you won't even think of conceding to my request? Surely you realize that no good can come for poor Quistis living on las.. as a _vegetable_. It would be better for you to put her out of her pain, take the mantle from her and...."

Too pure by far.

"I told you Seifer," candy-pink lips gently rebuffed. "It's wrong."

Rinoa could be amazingly stubborn.

"But two wrongs can make a right..." Seifer batted his eyes on the pine work-chair, recovering. She shouldn't see anything.. uncouth from him. No negative emotions. That was inappropriate before a future heir of Hyne, and Rinoa was _not _going to turn out like That Bitch.

"You're silly," she giggled in from of the mirror he'd had installed in his office, twisting and turning is the shining satin. The chamber was formerly Cid Kramer's. Words could not express the pleasure that little irony gave the new generation's Knight. " I have to get ready for the next speech."

"Of course, m'lady."

Words also could not express how amazingly.. _annoyed_ he was with his object of worship at the moment.

That Bitch was getting closer - her strikes more daring by the week. Showpieces in white and cream-colored spectacles be damned.. people were starting to _talk_. Whispering about why the Sorceress didn't blow those heretics out of the water.

And honestly, he couldn't blame them. Poor Rinoa - the delicacy that made her suitable would predestin her to shatter under the weight of duty if he made her assume the full burden of a sorceress. The blood should be on his hands, it couldn't touch her, but it _had_ to...

And the paradox of the creature flouncing out of his study was observed as a uniformed official entered. He opened his gaping, useless mouth to make a report and Seifer had received via the computer from intelligence an hour ago. Honestly, he was surrounded by morons... but using all Garden personel would look bad.

Politics would, in the perfect world, be the first thing to go.

"I already know, dickwad. Shut the fuck up." Evidedntly, a snappish Seifer did not care about _sounding_ bad.

He'd been thinking about this for a while now. And dishonorable though it was, the answer for the Knight just might lie with the enemy.

"Get me our sea carrier and a fully-armed stealth helicopter," the General ordered, waving off his subordinates claims at knowledge.

_Fact 1 - we need a Sorceress. And we need one right fucking now._

"Sir?" the young woman questioned while attempting not to sound like she was questioning him. How.. amusing. Dumbass.

_Fact 2 - Rinoa will not kill Quistis, and I cannot replace her with Quistis. Because Quistis is a Bitch._

"We're going hunting," the fire grinned lazily from his perch behind a desk so polished the afternoon sunlight reflected off it with the enthusiasm of a morning sunbeam.

"Hunting, sir?"

"I'm fixing the problem."

_Fact 3 - What makes a Sorceress look like a Sorceress? Magic._

"Let it never be said that Sir Seifer Almasy does not serve his nation well!" the wolf attempted to purr, and almost suceeded from beneath his blonde mane.

_Fact Four - I need that magic._

_And who can control Dear Ol' Quisty's magic while she sleeps her pretty brains out in a closet?_

"Sir, yes sir!"

_Klaus Odine. Inventor of the Odine bangle that has that bitch is stasis in the basement. Master of the D-bloody-NA of magic. The man who put a leash on Adel herself._

"Fuuuuck.. stop kissing my ass, you moron. I know my ideas are good, and I _have_ people for that anyways."   


***

_Squall Leonhart did not take things well; he took them calmly. Which is, naturally, an entirely different beast than taking them well. Because calm implied nothing about actually dealing with or analyzing said events._

_Case in point, the flight from Esthar. Admittedly a stupid move on his part. They could have been fully refitted. They coudl have rested and relazed and given a few hundred scared kids some downtime. And he could have gotten to.. well.. bond as much as Squall ever did with his newfound father. But instead he up and fled to bluer pastures, spooked beyond recognition after an admittedly lacklustre series of parental figures._

_Kiros had leaked the rumor to Fujin. Kiros was a very smart man._

_Since Squall did not take things well, he often preferred not to take them at all. Just dove into his work and his survivalist existance. No friendship, no kinship, no ties.. that was the plan. Which really was enough for him, according to several major psychological profiles. Until he had time in the middle of an ocean calm in hiding from several ICBMs with the only person who had ever got him, and the only person who had ever left him the hell alone like he wanted her too._

_Pity those set out to cushion falling rain._

***   


Squall Leonhart was in a Bad Mood.

Not everyone knew when Squall Leonhart was in a Bad Mood. He prided himself on a certain level of dignity in that respect. Cold - Squall could do that. And oh, how he did it well. Several lust-crazed student/subordinates could attest to that very handily.

But upset? Commander Squall Leonhart of whatever their Garden was called now (he honestly didn't care) did not show upset. Along with happy, sad, lonely, awestruck, and trusting, if you must know. And the constant state of mild confusion he seemed to be in was also of no consequence.

It was his misfortune, then, to be stuck behind a vidscreen in Martine's office instead of in the fray. Because there he might have discreetly vented a bit before coming into contact with quite possibly two of the only four people that could ever call him on being upset (which he was, mind you, absolutely certainly not).

".. what's wrong with her?" he minutely pouted, not having the sense not to ask. That he _had_ asked set off blinking red sirens in the heads of the two young men around him. Because Squall never asked about _anyone_ unless there was a one-hundred percent useful reason to do so. Which he rationalized that there was. Morale. Yeah.

This meant that _he_ thought he was handling this with ninjalike stealth. And that to anyone with half a clue, he was roaring his poor lion heart out. Poor cat doesn't notice his back leg scratching for fleas.

"I'm surprised you care, ya know," Raijin grinned, sensing the opportunity to rub salt into the proverbial wound as per a pact made three months ago between himself and the odious Mr.Dincht. Squall had not noticed that either. Great cats can't see in color.

Of course he cared! Keeping Fujin happy kept this place efficient (even if she didn't look happy alot, but neither did he so that was okay because generally happy people tended to be morons like Timlett and Dincht). And keeping this place efficient kept them all alive. Foolish Raijin.

"Squall," Zell sighed, preparing his best Best Buddy Routine in an attempt to illuminate the depths of Squalls... emotional obtuseness. " Isn't it hella obvious?"

No, not it was_ not_ 'hella obvious'. What, was he a mind reader? This was stupid. How was he supposed to know what was wrong with her? These people kept insisting on miracles.

Leonhart crossed him arms haughtily, with the first reply that came to mind when stupid Fujin acted irrationally and _refused_ to make sense and it was really really....

".. whatever."

Stupid Fujin. Stupid Rinoa. Stupid incomprehensible females.

"For Hyne's sake, Squall!" the bronze giant at his flank gestured. "She's upset over losing Seif, ya know? And he practically said he was gonna _propose_ to Rinoa in that last speech. I mean, geeze, it's bad enough one of your two best buddies goin' crazy and stuff. _ I_ wasn't in love with the guy...."

This was stupid.

"You weren't in love with him? Hah!" Dincht interrupted with a .. verbal punch. " According to some rumors I heard on the Garden Intranet that were all like...."

All.. just.. stupid!

"Oh, shut _up _chicken wuss," Kasin continued, visibly upsetting a now physically punching Zell. The air reeled from impact. "Anyway... jus' relax. She's not like this too much anymore. In a day or so it'll pass for a while and we'll all be back to stealin' stuff again. Which reminds me, that last load - D-43 or whatever, had some _way _good beef ya know. I say we fire up the grills an'... Hey.. where'd he go, ya know?"

Off to restore.. sanity to this stupid, unefficient, _no sense-making_ situation.

Dincht just shrugged. "Hell if I know. You said beef, man?"

***

_Fujin thought she was over him - for she was the strong, fearsome, devil-may-care-if-I-kick-your-ass Queen of Spades. But she had refused pain medication. She had decided on mind over matter. A pity, really._

_Pity those who cannot speak beyond the cuts in their lips. Pity those who do not want to listen past the blows to their ears._

_***_

In the Garden, on the deck, there were no more students. They had better things to do with their time than look at the great harpoon cables that had been welded onto their home. But Fujin was different. Weaponry.. didn't matter to her. And she'd discovered a certain fondness for looking out at the ocean.

They were on half-power floating in the water. Thankfully, she had not needed sea-sickness pills. That would have been... embarrassing.

"What's wrong." Squall. Behind her. Ah. He demanded. That was.. rude and unprofessional.

"Nothing," and he should have known that that was all he was going to get back anyways.

Her partner strode forward with an observation rather uncanny for him, "You're lying."

He should leave her alone. The sky was a pretty blue today. And Fujin was in the mood for a good salt-bath of a mope.

"... no."

That was when the uncomfortable silence started. Which actually did get her attention for once, if only because silence was usually the norm when it came to them. Uncomfortable silences were for people that thought too much about the emotions inherent. Unlike them.

"You have to stop it," Leonhart resolved, leaning on the wall behind her.

"Stop what?" crimson eyes narrowed in the cool breeze.

"You've had time," and lo, a hint of emotion cracked the ice. "Stop being upset!"

"Why?"

".....Because," Squall reasoned, arms crossed as he rebelled against causes only he could name.

This was irrational. Where the hell did he get off questioning her? He'd barely known that Rinoa tart.

"Because why?"

"Because.." the brave man gestured, "you're being like... _them_. It's not efficient."

Hyne. She did _not_ have time with this. What the hell was wrong with him? That bitch Seifer up and rubbed his Sorceress in her goddamn face yet again and Squall had to get all goddamn cryptic and _not_ what she needed right now.

"Speak English, Leonhart. I got no time for this."

And for a second, it looked as though he might have known, really. Just for a second. The second it took for the seafoam to die on the Renegade Garden's bow.

"You're not an idiot."

So he expected _her_ to know?

"I should think not," Fujin snapped back.

"So just.. stop it!" the lion snapped back, seemingly almost disgusted. "Soldiers don't act like that."

"Yes, sir," Fujin rolled her eyes, with a look that threatened violence. Her questioner soon stalked away with a faint 'whatever'.

... why did she get the vague feeling that they'd just had a fight? Idiocy. She didn't want to think about this. Squall was acting like.. _Raijin_ or something. This was disconcerting.

What on earth did he mean? _She _wasn't acting like a soldier?

_Bah. Men._   


***

_And, above the rest..._

_Pity those to come._

***

The next morning, in a camp on a rock ravaged by the desert sun, gender relations seem to have gone a little better.

"Oh Hyne... "

Just a little.

"What'd wrong, Sephy?"

They were talking, at least. Construing meaning and even words from the scentences coming from each other's mouths.

"This is totally.. totally not cool Irvine."

There might have even been a little understanding. In a warped sort of way.

"Are you okay?"

They at least admitted they cared what happened to each other. That was a start.

"Yep just.. hold on. I'll be fine in a minute."

She was sick. And he was sympathetic. A tether ridge crosses the gap!

"You should be happy! Matron always said that she wished she could be sick in the mornings, because then she could have a baby."

Only to be shot to hell once more when nature works its course.

"... FUCK!"

And so the story goes.

***

_ May Hyne have mercy on them all._

_***_   
  
  
  
  
  
  


Author's note - This is.. not my best chapter. I'll admit that. But it's mpore of anm interlude than anything, so I do hope you'll forgive me. This fic is to be continued in a second act. Broken Mirror - Shards.


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